Chemical element of metals. Cu comes from Cuprum, Fe comes from Ferrum, Ag from Argentum. The symbols were not followed by a period (full stop) as with abbreviations. Later chemical elements were also assigned unique chemical symbols, based on the name of the element, but not necessarily in English. For example, sodium has the chemical symbol 'Na' after the Latin "natrium". The same applies to "W" (wolfram) for tungsten, "Fe" (ferrum) for iron, "Hg" (hydrargyrum) for mercury, "Sn" (stannum) for tin, "K" (kalium) for potassium, "Au" (aurum) for gold, "Ag" (argentum) for silver, "Pb" (plumbum) for lead, "Cu" (cuprum) for copper, and
Wolfram Saenger Wolfram Saenger Wolfram Saenger (born 1939) is a German biochemist and protein crystallographer. In his research career spanning over 30 years he has worked at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine, Harvard University (Harvard Medical School) and the Free University of Berlin, where he led the Institute for Crystallography research until his retirement in 2011. A recipient of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (1987) of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, which is the highest honor awarded for achievements in research in Germany, and the Humboldt Prize (1988), he is best known for his research on X-ray crystallography of membrane proteins and