Name Bernhard Kadenbach | ||
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Bernhard Kadenbach (born 21 August 1933) is a German biochemist with main research in structure and function of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase, who worked as a professor in the chemistry department of Philipps-Universität Marburg.
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Academic career
Kadenbach earned a "Diplom" (master's degree) in chemistry at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 1959. He spent one year (1960) as research fellow at the Wenner-Gren Institute of the University of Stockholm. He obtained his PhD in biochemistry in 1964 at the Institute of Physiological Chemistry, Philipps-Universität Marburg. The dissertation was entitled "The influence of thyroidhormones in vivo on oxidative phosphorylation and enzyme activities in mitochondria". In 1964 he married Helke Mosner (two children). From 1968–1971 he was a teaching and research assistant at the Physiological Chemistry Institute of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. In 1971 he was qualified for lecturing at the Universität Konstanz (habilitation). The thesis was entitled: “Biosynthesis of cytochrome c”. From 1971–1973 he became "Oberassistent" (assistant professor) at the Laboratory of Biochemistry at the Eidgenössischen Technischen Hochschule Zürich, Switzerland. In 1973 he became a professor of biochemistry at the Fachbereich Chemie, Philipps-Universität Marburg. His formal retirement was in 1998. From 2003–2013 he continued his research on regulation of cytochrome c oxidase at the Biomedizinisches Forschungszentrum (BMFZ) within the Klinikum of the Philipps-Universität Marburg.
Fields of research
Kadenbach studied the mitochondrial phosphate carrier and found its essential requirement for cardiolipin.
Subsequent studies concentrated on the protein structure and function of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase. He discovered the occurrence of tissue-specific and developmental-specific protein isoforms. Defective cytochrome c oxidase activity was found in mitochondrial diseases and in human muscle cells with increasing age. Ten specific binding sites for ADP or ATP were identified in mammalian cytochrome c oxidase, which regulate the H+/e- stoichiometry of proton pumping, and the allosteric inhibition of activity, depending on the ATP/ADP ratio. Stress-dependent reversible dephosphorylation of cytochrome c oxidase suggests formation of reactive oxygen species. A hypothesis on the cause of oxidative stress, aging and disease was published by Kadenbach in 2013.
Memberships
Publications
From 1959 until 2012 Kadenbach published 237 papers in national and international journals. The following publication are a selection: