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Johanna Döbereiner
Johanna Döbereiner was one of the greatest Brazilian scientists. Soil microbiology was her field, and mainly the role of nitrogen-fixing bacteria in plants. Of Czech origin, she graduated in agronomic engineering at the University of Munich, coming to Brazil after the Second World War and being hired, in 1951, by the Institute of Ecology and Agricultural Experimentation (Instituto de Ecologia e Experimentação Agrícolas), now the National Center of Agrobiological Research (Centro Nacional de Pesquisa de Agrobiologia), of Embrapa.
Johanna was the most frequently cited Brazilian female scientist in international indexed publications. Her studies on bacteria were essential for the Brazilian agriculture to reduce the use of fertilizers. The immediate impact of her researches was the huge economy upon the culture of soybean, turning Brazil into one of the world's biggest exporters of this legume crop. Another immediate impact was the drastic decrease of water pollution by agricultural fertilizers. The success of that strategy placed Brazil as the second world's biggest producer, saving more than US$ 1 billion a year in fertilizers and making the national product competitive in international markets.
The oil crisis of the 70's, the increased pollution caused by the massive application of fertilizers, especially in the USA, and the use of the acetylene reduction technique, used to detect the activity of fixing bacteria, ended up calling the whole world's attention to dr. Döbereiner's work. The scientific world began trying to understand the knowledge acquired and the experiments developed by dr. Johanna and her staff, mainly in the field of research about the association of diazotrophic bacteria (nitrogen-fixing) and grains, grass and root vegetables.During her career dr. Döbereiner was awarded many national and international prizes. She was a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (Academia Brasileira de Ciências), and a founding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Third World (Academia de Ciências do Terceiro Mundo) and the Pontificial Academy of Sciences (Pontificia Academia SCIENTIARVM). Dr. Johanna Döbereiner died on October 5, 2000, in Rio de Janeiro.
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
17 July 2004 -
Date of issue
Sept 2003
