40 May / June 2014
on tobacco or a tobacco specialist who drifted into separation science? To cut a clumsy, multi-question short, what triggered off your interest in chromatography?
Graz became my local university after I have moved from Vienna to Graz in 1965, mainly for personal reasons. I finished my PhD in June 1972. At that time Doris and I were children of the so-called ‘68 generation’. Politically, socially and economically a very dynamic period of time and being raised in a rather small and not very rich country, like Austria was at that time, most of my student colleagues and friends dreamed from going abroad after having finished the studies. However, on 27th August 1968, 6 days after the ‘Prague Spring’ where the Russian tanks stood at the long East-European border. I got married to Doris and in 1969 our first son Fritz was born. As a student couple and family the dreams came back to earth, we worked hard to earn our daily life but enjoyed that time very much.
After finishing my PhD in Chemistry I had to search rather quickly for a job as our second son Philipp was born in June 1972. After the PhD it was an eminent question for me which way to follow, do I go to industry or should I enter an academic life. Finally it was a gut decision in deciding for academia although the salaries were much less than in industry. Doris was and has been fully understanding; we never regretted this decision. I moved from the Organic Chemistry Department of the University of Graz to the Pharmaceutical Chemistry Department where I could quickly establish a laboratory specialising in GC, and soon LC, methodologies applied to pharmaceutical analysis. During my PhD at the Organic Chemistry Department I was able to bridge organic chemistry with modern GC and GC-MS
Wolfgang Lindner with mentors the late Roland Frei (centre) and the late Joseph Huber (right)
technology (already in the 70s my supervisors Dr. Binder and Prof. Zigeuner had access to this instrumentation). I worked on the analysis of tobacco smoke and analysed highly reactive compounds (ketenes, carbonsuboxide, etc.) generated via pyrolytic reactions in the Glüh- zone of the cigarette. I established pyrolysis GC in simulating these processes. As a student I smoked heavily but in 1972 I finally quit and never smoked again. The early work with GC fascinated me and I was intrigued by the enormous power separation science has in the course of the analysis of organic species. Already in 1973 I was able to purchase a superb Hupe-Busch HPLC instrument (this company was bought up 1974 by Hewlett-Packard) and from there on I worked in the fields of GC and HPLC whereby the HPLC technology inspired me particularly due to the enormous potential. Already at that time I had realised for myself that my professional love is research and teaching, so I had been fully satisfied with the decision I had had to make in 1972.
You seem to have had three ‘sabbatical’ periods during your career. Were these a great influence and of importance to you? Did you take different things from each? Is it a matter of regret that such opportunities are rarely afforded to today’s academic separation scientists?
Early career Wolfgang Lindner, looking every inch ‘68 generation’
The University of Graz was a good starting point and provided an environment to develop a career as a researcher. The 70s were booming years all over Europe, everywhere new institutes were built and the feeling for the future was very optimistic. Nevertheless, I realised that sooner than later I had to go abroad to move on in my academic career, albeit this was not so easy as we were already a family of four with children starting with the school. In 1977 I attended the first time an HPLC symposium in Salzburg presenting a poster together with a mentor of mine, the late Professor Roland Frei. We became friends during two stays at Sandoz-Basel (now Novartis-Basel) in the years 1973 and 1974. There I got exposed to top pharmaceutical analysis laboratories. At that I got also to know Fritz Erni being in friendship since then. My plan was to approach in Salzburg Professor Barry Karger who was already a big figure (guru) in the HPLC scene and to ask him for a post-doc stay. He agreed spontaneously although I was not so young anymore. From the Max Kade Foundation I got a stipend which enabled me and my family to go to Boston where we had one of our best years as a family.
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