Rudi Lemberg

Max Rudolf "Rudi" Lemberg FRS FAA (19 October 1896 – 10 April 1975) was a German-Australian biochemist who specialised in porphyrin structure and function. He was a Foundation Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA).

Lemberg served in the German Army during WWI and earned an Iron Cross. He married textile artist Hanne in Breslau in 1924. The couple were involved in social work programs to improve the slums and in youth groups. The Lembergs moved to Heidelberg after their marriage, where Rudi worked at the university until 1933.

Rudi, whose family background was Jewish, fled Nazi Germany with Hanna in 1933. He was recommended for a position at the University of Cambridge, and the Lembergs moved from there to Sydney in 1935.

He was a director of the Kolling Institute of Medical Research from 1935 to 1972, establishing a major research focus on porphyrins, structures within molecules which give the red colour to blood and the yellow colour to bile. In 1949, he and collaborator J. W. Legge published Hematin Compounds and Bile Pigments, the "high-water mark in Lemberg's scientific development and thinking". The Lembergs gave part of their property to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) where a meeting house was built, meetings held, and Rudi taught young friends about evolution and the spirit. Rudi died in 1975, and Hanna died in 1998. The couple had no children and left their property to the Quakers.

Awardees: 2020 – Robert Edwards 2018 – Christina A. Kellogg 2016 – Lawrence Berliner 2012 – Peter Jones 2010 – Johann Deisenhofer 2008 – John F. Allen 2006 – Jan Vymazal 2004 – Gerard Dismukes 2002 – Petra Fromme; Richard Perham 2001 – D.M.J.S. Bowman 1999 – Vern Schramm 1997 – Martin Brand 1996 – Tim Flannery 1993 – Winslow Briggs 1992 – Edward Kosower 1991 – Robert Huber 1990 – Jerker Porath 1989 – Michael Rosenzweig 1986 – Hugo Scheer 1985 – Michael Rossmann 1984 – O.T.G. Jones 1983 – Jack Heslop-Harrison 1982 – Wolfgang Joklik 1981 – Emanuel Margoliash; Peter H. Raven 1980 – L.E. Mortenson; G.J.V. Nossal 1979 – Britton Chance; John Gurdon; Gunther Stent