Jens Reich

Jens Georg Reich (born 26 March 1939 in Göttingen) is a German scientist and a member of the German Ethics Council. He has become famous as a civil rights campaigner in the last decade of the GDR times.

Life and work

Jens Reich grew up in Halberstadt. He studied medicine and molecular biology at Berlin’s Humboldt University and began his professional career as a junior doctor in his hometown. After further study in biochemistry, he turned to research work. In 1964, Jens Reich obtained his doctorate with the dissertation “Arterial Vascular Sounds“ and from 1968 onwards worked at the Central Institute of Molecular Biology of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin-Buch. In 1976 he completed the dissertation “Time and Motion in the Metabolism of Living Cells“ for his second doctorate.

As early as 1970 he co-founded a private “Friday Circle“, a group of about 30 opposition-minded citizens who met to discuss the GDR system. In the 80s the State Security Ministry spied on the group and kept records of their meetings. Soon after his appointment to the post of the head of the department at the Central Institute of Molecular Biology, Jens Reich lost this post. He was further sanctioned for his oppositional attitude with a ban on travel to Western countries.