Emil Christian Hansen

File:Emil Christian Hansen in the lab by Frederik Riise.jpg

Hansen in his lab.

Emil Christian Hansen (8 May 1842 – 27 August 1909) was a Danish mycologist and fermentation physiologist.

Early life and education

Hansen was born in Ribe to Joseph Christian Hansen, a house-painter, and his wife Ane Catherina Dyhre.<ref name="Klocker1910">Template:Cite book</ref>

Between 1874 and 1875 he edited and distributed an mycological exsiccata work, namely Fungorum fimicolorum exempl. exsiccati, with 350 numbered specimen units.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was awarded a gold medal in 1876 for an essay on fungi, titled De danske Gjødningssvampe.<ref>Encyclopedia.com (biography)</ref> During his days as a university student in Copenhagen, he worked as an unpaid assistant to zoologist Japetus Steenstrup (1813–1897).

Career

In 1876, with Alfred Jørgensen (1848–1925), he published a Danish translation of Charles Darwin’s "The Voyage of the Beagle"; Rejse om Jorden. From 1879 to 1909, he was director of the physiological department at Carlsberg Laboratory.<ref>Darwinarkivet (biographical information)</ref>

Hired by the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen in 1879,<ref>www.germanbeerinstitute.com Template:Webarchive</ref> he became the first to isolate a pure cell of yeast in 1883, and after combining it with a sugary solution, produced more yeast than was in a yeast bank. It was named as Saccharomyces carlsbergensis after the laboratory, and is the yeast from which are derived, all yeasts used in lager beers.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> See Fermentation, Yeast.

Hansen is the taxonomic authority of the fungal genus Anixiopsis (1897) from the family Onygenaceae.<ref>Encyclopedia of Life Anixiopsis</ref>

He was honoured in 1911, when botanist H. Zikes published Hanseniaspora, which is a genus of yeasts.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Publications by Hansen that have been translated into English

• Practical studies in fermentation: being contributions to the life history of micro-organisms, 1896.
• Considerations on Technical Mycology, 1905.<ref>WorldCat Search (publications)</ref>

Literature

• Claussen, Niels Hjelte Emil Christian Hansen, pp. 161–164 in: Meisen, V. Prominent Danish Scientists through the Ages. University Library of Copenhagen 450th Anniversary. Levin & Munksgaard, Copenhagen (1932)
• Beer in Health and Disease Prevention edited by Victor R. Preedy

References

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