7 Staudinger’s Visions Toward (Bio)System Integration
In his Nobel lecture on December 11, 1953 [6] Hermann Staudinger stated [22]:
“With a few bricks it is impossible to erect a great variety of buildings; nevertheless, provided that 10,000 or 100,000 bricks are available it is quite possible to
construct the most diverse buildings, . . . The existence of macromolecules and the
steadily deepening knowledge of their properties have revealed the nature of the
building units which the living cell requires to create matter”. .. Today his vision is
inspiring many researchers in chemistry, materials science, and biotechnology to
tailor multifunctional polymeric materials with complex functions and architectures. Hermann Staudinger concluded his Nobel speech with the statement [22]: “In
this way macromolecular chemistry appears today to fit between low molecular
organic chemistry and cytology. It is the connecting link between them, growing
systematically out of low molecular chemistry but, with the incomparably larger
Fig. 5 The grave of
Hermann and Magda
Staudinger in Freiburg
Hermann Staudinger and Polymer Research in Freiburg
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