Meet the IUPAB Councilor—Hans-Joachim Galla

As one of the twelve Councilors, it is my pleasure to provide a short biographical sketch for the readers of Biophys. Rev. and for the members of the Biophysical Societies. I have been a member of the council in the former election period. Moreover, I served since decades in the German Biophysical Society (DGfB) as board member, secretary, vice president, and president. I hold a diploma degree in chemistry as well as PhD from the University of Göttingen. The experimental work for both qualifications has been performed at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen under the guidance of Erich Sackmann and the late Herman Träuble. When E. Sackmann moved to the University of Ulm, I joined his group as a research assistant performing my independent research on structure and dynamics of biological and artificial membranes and qualified for the “habilitation” thesis in Biophysical Chemistry. I have spent a research year at Stanford University supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and after coming back to Germany, I was appointed as a Heisenberg Fellow by the DFG and became Professor in Biophysical Chemistry in the Chemistry Department of the University of Darmstadt. Since 1990, I spent my career at the Institute for Biochemistry of the University of Muenster as full Professor and Director of the institute. I have trained numerous undergraduate, 150 graduate, and postdoctoral students from chemistry, physics, and also pharmacy as well as biology resulting in more than 350 published papers including reviews and book articles in excellent collaboration with colleagues from different academic disciplines in our university and also internationally, e.g., as a guest professor at the Chemistry Department of the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing.

Murburn model of mitochondrial aerobic respiration is robust in comparison to the ‘chemiosmotic rotary or two-ion torsional’ ATP-synthesis proposals

One of the most fundamental questions in biology pertains to how mechano-chemical energy is derived from metabolic fuels. In particular, how oxidation of NADH is linked to ATP synthesis in mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (mOxPhos) has been a topic of intense debate. Together, the Peter Mitchell-Paul Boyer proposals for mOxPhos are termed herein as “chemiosmotic rotary ATP synthesis” (or CRAS) model, which was recently defended/advocated by Pedro Silva in Biophysical Chemistry . Over the last two decades, Sunil Nath had questioned some aspects of the CRAS proposal, and made subtle alterations on the roles of Complex V and ions within the reaction scheme, and continues to advocate his framework as “two-ion torsional ATP synthesis” (abbreviated herein as TITAS) model in Biophysical Chemistry . Kelath Murali Manoj had revisited the data on the respiratory machinery’s structures/distributions and based on two-decades of evidence-based experimental research in redox enzymology of heme/flavin proteins, had formulated the murburn model for mOxPhos. In this work, the ETC-CRAS hypothesis and its off-shoot, the TITAS proposal, are questioned in the light of the convincing chemicophysical logic provided by the murburn hypothesis.

Rebutting Pedro J. Silva’s article in Biophysical Chemistry supporting Mitchell-Boyer’s ideas on bioenergetics and advocating murburn concept as a viable explanation for aerobic respiration and oxygenic photosynthesis

Over the last three years, I had pointed out the untenable nature of the proton-centric ‘chemiosmosis driven rotary ATP-synthesis (CRAS)’ explanation for Oxidative Phosphorylation (OxPhos). Recently, Pedro J. Silva (PJS) [Chemiosmotic misunderstandings (2020). Biophys. Chem. 264, 106424] afforded a part of our work his critical attention, but overlooked the large volume of evidence against CRAS and supporting the oxygen-centric murburn mechanism of OxPhos. In his article, PJS also posed some queries on our bioenergetics model. When I offered my rebuttal, the Editor of Biophysical Chemistry refused to publish it. Therefore, I have no other option than to publish the rebuttal as a preprint. Herein, I demonstrate the flaws and lacunae in PJS’s defense of CRAS hypothesis and answer his specific queries and defend the murburn explanation of mOxPhos. The current scientific discourse is crucial for correcting major historical errors in mitochondrial physiology and understanding oxygen’s crucial role in the powering chemistry of life.