Emil Christian Hansen | |
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Emil Christian Hansen | |
Born | 8 May 1842 Ribe |
Died | 27 August 1909 | (aged 67)
Nationality | Denmark |
Known for | Saccharomyces carlsbergensis |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Mycology |
Institutions | Carlsberg Laboratory |
Author abbrev. (botany) | E.C.Hansen |
Emil Christian Hansen (8 May 1842 – 27 August 1909) was a Denmark mycologist and fermentation physiologist.
Born in Ribe, he financed his education by writing novels. He was awarded a gold medal in 1876 for an essay on fungi, titled De danske Gjødningssvampe.[1] During his days as a university student in Copenhagen, he worked as an unpaid assistant to zoologist Japetus Steenstrup (1813–1897). 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.[2]
Hired by the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen in 1879,[3] 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.[4] See Fermentation, Yeast.
Hansen is the taxonomic authority of the fungal genus Anixiopsis (1897) from the family Onygenaceae.[5]