Blood and Iron

Abstract

The title 'Blood and Iron' comes from a speech pronounced at the Prussian Diet on 30th september 1862, by Otto von Bismarck, the founder of German reunification, in which he said "Not by parliamentary speeches and majority votes are the great questions of  the day determined - that was the mistake of 1848 and 1849 - but by iron and blood."

Bismarck was alluding to the necessary requirement to achieve the unification of Germany, at the time a collection of small states governed by small-minded Kings and princes. My intention is not to discourse on the virtues of unity in the face of diversity, but rather to trace the relationship between haem iron and the storage form of iron ferritin, which almost certainly marks my last contribution to biochemical research, although, I hope to continue my scientific activities through the written word - the Biological Inorganic Biochemistry book has sold in excess of 200 copies in 2007, despite only being published in december!

Speaker: Robert Crichton

Affiliation: Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium