Patrick Baeuerle
Name: Patrick Baeuerle
Country: Germany
What is your background?
I am a molecular biologist, drug developer and serial entrepreneur. I studied biology and biochemistry at the universities of Konstanz and Munich. My master and PhD labwork was at the Max Planck Institute for Neurochemistry in Martinsried and the EMBL in Heidelberg with Wieland Huttner, a famous neurobiologist who deciphered how humans evolved a large brain size. My post doctorate was with Nobel laureate David Baltimore at MIT in Cambridge, USA. After running my own lab at the Gene center in Martinsried for four years, I was called at the age of 34 as chairman and professor of biochemistry and molecular biology to the medical faculty of Freiburg University. After less than three years, I transitioned into the biotech industry by joining the start-up company Tularik in South San Francisco. From there, I joined the company Micromet in Martinsried, Germany, as their Chief Scientific Officer. Micromet was acquired by AMGEN. So, I ended up at AMGEN as their site head in Munich and a Vice President Research. After three years, I joined MPM Capital in Boston as an Executive Partner and Entrepreneur in Residence. This gave me the opportunity to co-found a total of eight biotech companies developing novel cancer therapeutics, most of which on the basis of my own patents. In the meantime, two of my start-ups were acquired, three are listed on NASDAQ and three are still private. I now spend most of my time as Chief Scientific Advisor with one of the publicly listed companies based in Cambridge, USA.
I have very diverse research interests. As a master and PhD student, I worked on a covalent modification of secretory proteins, called tyrosine sulfation. As a postdoc at MIT, I was fortunate to discover how the transcription factor NF-kappa B is activated, which plays a key role as a genetic switch in inflammation and autoimmune diseases. I continued this research in my own lab at the Gene Center and the University of Freiburg. At Tularik, I was heading Drug Discovery in search of small molecules regulating gene expression in diseases. This was my entry into industry and an important experience. Finally at Micromet, I developed novel cancer drugs based on antibodies, a topic I am still following 28 years later. At Micromet, I was fortunate to head the development of a so-called bispecific, T cell-engaging antibody called blinatumomab (commercial name Blincyto) that is now FDA-approved for the treatment of patients with an aggressive form of leukemia. In the meantime, I have invented with my US-based companies many more cancer therapeutics, most of which are in clinical testing.
Despite my transition from academia into the biotech industry more than 30 years ago, I have not stopped doing basic and applied research and publishing it. Today, I rank among the top 500 most frequently cited biomedical scientists in the world with more than 87.000 citations and a Hirsch-Index of 143. For more details on my achievements and honors, please see websites of the LMU in Munich or of the Leopoldina.
Since when and why are you interested in climate change?
Who is not interested in climate change? See below…
How did your views on climate change evolve?
A stronger engagement started for me in October 2023 when my wife told me that she saw at a nearby school the following sentence written on the board: “CO2 is evil”. This rang an alarm bell in my scientific mind. Is this what our children get taught these days at school? Did no one tell them that life on Earth would not exist without CO2, that CO2 is not a pollutant but the most essential food for plants, that crops increase and the planet is getting greener by rising CO2, that we have alarmingly low levels of CO2 compared to the Earth’s history, or that humans exhale 3 billion tons of CO2 every year? Apparently not.
I had to realize how brainwashed we all are, including myself, by a pseudo religion connecting a 50% rise in CO2 to man-made global ‘boiling’ and a climate apocalypse. I started listening to talks by Happer, Wrightstone, Koonin, Moore, Lord Monckton, Vahrenholt, Shellenberger and many others who convinced me that there is a gigantic lie out there trying to blame humanity and man-made CO2 for a climate collapse and the end of the planet. I then looked more critically at daily news about climate change that, while vigorously feeding the narrative, never mention critical studies and voices. As an enthusiastic scientist, I saw scientific principles violated by climate scientists, be it the principle of consensus, correlation, truthfulness or critical discussion. I am now totally shocked to see how scientific misconduct has been spread with support of politics and mainstream media in our 21st century Western societies. Last but not least, I now daily witness the ramifications of this lie leading to blind activism and huge spendings in an effort to get the world to ‘net zero’ and ‘decarbonized’, a totally absurd proposition.
So, I found it logical for me to join the CO2 Coalition in the US and to sign the WCD of Clintel. I also started working on a pitch deck as the basis for presentations in Germany, the EU and the US to help educate people and make them understand the importance of CO2, and see through the IPCC narrative.
Is climate change a big issue in your country and how do you notice this?
In Germany? Of course, climate change is in the center stage of left-green politics! If we did not have such a strong economy, the country would be bankrupt by now from spendings on climate change. I leave it to others, like Prof. Vahrenholt, to comment on the situation in Germany.
What would climate policy ideally look like in your view?
Trust in humanity to adapt well to slow global warming. Life expectancy is rising and death from natural calamities is coming down as a sign how well we can adapt. Corals can recover from bleaching because they always do, polar bear populations are stable or rising, the Antarctic ice is not melting away, and there is no increased frequency of hurricanes…
Appraise rising CO2 leading to larger crops, more nutrition and a greener planet. Appraise global warming, which in the past helped cultures like the Minoan, Roman and Medieval to thrive. Make renewable energy profitable, economic and affordable and no longer highly subsidized for ideological reasons. Do not force people to drive EVs, change their heating system, or equip their roofs with PV. We need another age of enlightenment to work up all the scientific misconduct and understand the truth about climate change.
What is your motivation to sign the Clintel World Climate Declaration?
To align with other scientists on what we believe is good science and the truth about climate change.