Biochemistry

Biochemistry: timeline of key events

A chemist and physiologist, Hoppe-Seyler helped pioneer the disciplines of biochemistry and molecular biology. He studied fluids of the body such as blood, haemoglobin, pus, bile, milk, and urine and was the first to crystallise haemoglobin and observe its absorption spectrum. In addition he performed several important studies on chlorophyll and isolated several different proteins. Hoppe-Seyler lost both of his parents by the time he was nine years old and spent some of his childhood in an orphan asylum in Halle. He was subsequently adopted by Georg Seyler, the husband of his older sister.1825-12-26T00:00:00+0000Kuhne was a physiologist who coined the term 'enzyme' after his discovery of the protein-digesting enzyme trypsin in 1876. Early on in his career Kuhne worked on the physiology of muscle. In later years he turned to looking at the chemistry of digestion. Kuhne is also known for having helped to elucidate the chemical changes that occur in the retina under the influence of light. 1837-03-28T00:00:00+0000Fischer was a German chemist who opened up the era of biochemistry by clarifying the structure of sugars and enzymes and elaborating how they were formed. In 1902 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for demonstrating the structure of biological compounds, including sugars proteins and purines. He synthesised many natural occurring molecules for the first time, including glucose, caffeine, and uric acid. In addition, he managed to synthesis several amino acids and created small chains of them as precursors to protein formation. Fisher is also associated with the idea of the 'lock and key' mechanism which is used to explain how enzymes catalyse certain reactions and not others.1852-10-09T00:00:00+0000Takamine was the first to isolate and purify the hormone adrenalin from animal glands. It was the first effective bronchodilator for asthma. This he achieved in 1901 while working for the division of chemistry at the Department of Agriculture and Commerce in Japan. It was the first pure hormone isolated from a natural source.1854-11-03T00:00:00+0000Buchner was a chemist and zymologist. In 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his discovery of cell-free fermentation. This was based on some experiments he carried out in 1897, during which he found that yeast extract could form alcohol from a sugar solution without any living cells. He discovered that the fermentation was driven by an enzyme, zymase, inside the yeast cells. It provided the first evidence that biochemical processes were driven by enzymes formed inside cells. He was killed in the First World War while serving as a general. 1860-05-20T00:00:00+0000Hopkins was a biochemist who shared the 1929 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering vitamins and demonstrating they are an important nutrient in the diet. This was based on experiments he carried out on rats in 1901. He also helped establish the chemistry of muscle contraction, showing that lactic acid accumulates in working muscle in 1907. In 1922 he isolated and demonstrated the importance of tripeptide gluathione to the utilisation of oxygen by the cell. 1861-06-20T00:00:00+0000Harden was one of the key founders of British biochemistry. He won the 1929 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for working out the importance of two enzymes and phosphoric acid during the fermentation process. These he discovered while investigating the fermentation of sugars by bacteria, a project undertaken between 1900 and 1914 that was designed to find a way of differentiating between different groups of Escherichia coli. The work involved grinding bacteria and extracting the intracellular juices.1865-10-12T00:00:00+0000Tsvet was a botanist who is credited with the invention of adsorption chromatography. He first described the method in 1901. His technique involved using ether and alcohol to extract plant pigments from leaves and then passing the resulting solution through a column of calcium carbonate. The advantage of the process was that it separated pigments into different coloured bands. By using the process Tsvet was able to demonstrate that plants had two forms of chlorophyll and eight additional pigments. Chromatography is now an important laboratory technique for the separation of a mixture.1872-05-14T00:00:00+0000Euler-Chelpin was a German-born Swedish biochemist who shared the Nobel Prize in 1929 for working out the role of enzymes in the fermentation of sugar. His work laid the foundation for understanding the important processes that take place in the muscles for supplying energy. He also helped show that colouring agents like betacaronoids in vegetables get transformed into vitamin A in the body. 1873-02-15T00:00:00+0000Windaus was a German steroid chemist who helped discover 7-dehydrocholesterol, the chemical precursor of vitamin D in 1926. He showed that exposure to sunlight converted the molecule into vitamin D. His finding explained why sunlight was important to preventing rickets, a bone disease that afflicts humans who have a vitamin D deficiency. In 1928 Windaus was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on sterols and their relation to vitamins. He also helped work out the chemical steps involved in the transformation of cholesterol to vitamin D31876-12-25T00:00:00+0000Fleming was a biologist and microbiologist. He first made his mark through his discovery of lysosyme in 1923. This is an enzyme produced in the tears, saliva, mucus and human milk which is an important part of the immune system. Today he is best known for having found penicillin, a mould subsequently developed as the first antibiotic drug to treat bacterial diseases. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1945 for this discovery.1881-08-06T00:00:00+0000Svedberg was a nuclear scientist who in 1923 invented the analytical ultracentrifuge, a high speed centrifuge that makes it possible to spin large molecules at forces in excess of a million times the force of gravity. This provided a means to separate large macromolecules such as proteins out of a solution. Svedberg used his ultracentrifuge to work out the relative molecular masses of large molecules in high polymers and proteins. He managed to determine the molecular weight of haemoglobin in blood and casein in milk. Svedberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1926 for his invention of the analytical ultracentrifuge. which he used to research colloids and proteins.1884-08-30T00:00:00+0000Kendall made several contributions to biochemistry and medicine. He is best known for isolating the steroid cortisone from the adrenal gland cortex, subsequently used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, for which he shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1950. He also isolated thyroxine, the main hormone secreted by the thyroid gland which is vital to digestion, heart and muscle function and brain development and bone maintenance. 1886-03-08T00:00:00+0000Rose was a biochemist and nutritionist. He isolated the amino acid threonine in 1932 and demonstrated in rats that a diet that lacked the amino acid stunted their growth. By 1949 he had established that ten amino acids were vital to human health: histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan and valine. Based on this work he was appointed to the US Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council which drew up dietary recommendations. 1887-04-04T00:00:00+0000Sumner was a biochemist who showed that enzymes are proteins and can be crystalised, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1946. He crystalised his first enzyme, urease, in 1926. This he achieved by mixing purified urease with acetone and then chilling it. Using chemical tests he showed the enzyme was a protein. His work provided the first proof that enzymes are proteins1887-11-19T00:00:00+0000Harger was a biochemist and toxicologist who invented the first practical test for measuring alcohol levels in drivers. He developed this in 1931. Known as the Drunkometer, the test collected a sample of a driver's breath directly into a balloon. This was then pumped into an acidifed potassium permanganate solution. If any alcohol was present in the sample the solution changed colour. Harger's test greatly helped reduce the number of road deaths from drunk driving. 1890-01-14T00:00:00+0000Northrop shared the 1946 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for helping to develop the technique for purifying and crystallising enzymes and virus proteins. His work showed that enzymes obey the laws of chemical reactions and that they are proteins. In 1930 he crystallised pepsin, an enzyme present in gastric juice necessary for digestion. Eight years later he isolated the first bacterial virus (bacteriophage). This he proved to be a nucleoprotein. Other enzymes that he managed to isolate and crystalise were trypsin and chymotrypsin, both important to the digestive process.1891-07-05T00:00:00+0000Banting was a physician who helped discover and isolate insulin. He also pioneered the extraction of insulin from pigs and cattle and demonstrated its use to treat diabetes in dogs. In 1923 he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this work. 1891-11-14T00:00:00+0000Moore was a zoologist who devoted his career to studying the reoproductive tract of male mammals and the physiology of spermatozoa. He played a pivotal role in 1929 in isolating the testicular secretion containing the male sex hormones andresterone and testosterone. This discovery opened up the path to researching the chemical composition of the hormones and their production. 1892-12-05T00:00:00+0000Cohn developed a fractionation technique to separate blood into its components, paving the way to safer blood transfusion. During World War II he worked out methods for isolating serum albumin from blood plasma which is crucial to maintaining osmotic pressure in blood vessels and preventing their collapse. Thousands of soldiers were successfully treated on the battlefield with transfusions of purified albumin. Cohn subsequently developed mechanisms so that every component of blood could be used in transfusions.1892-12-17T00:00:00+0000Albert Szent-Gyorgyi was a biochemist who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937 for isolating vitamin C and determining the components and reactions of the citric acid cycle. He subsequently worked on the biophysics of muscle movement and discovered the biochemical nature of muscular contraction. His findings revolutionised the field of muscle research. Later on he explored the connections between free radicals and cancer. 1893-09-16T00:00:00+0000Doisy was a biochemist who helped isolate two forms of vitamin K and determine their chemical structure in 1936-39, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1943. The fact that Vitamin K helps promote blood-clotting means it is used widely in surgery and medicine. Doisy also helped isolate the sex hormones estrone (1929), estriol (1935), and estradiol (1935).1893-11-13T00:00:00+0000A German chemist and physiologist, Hoppe-Seyler helped pioneer the disciplines of biochemistry and molecular biology. He studied fluids of the body such as blood, haemoglobin, pus, bile, milk, and urine and was the first to crystallise haemoglobin and observe its absorption spectrum. In addition he performed several important studies on chlorophyll and isolated several different proteins. Hoppe-Seyler lost both of his parents by the time he was nine years old and spent some of his childhood in an orphan asylum in Halle. He was subsequently adopted by Georg Seyler, the husband of his older sister. 1895-08-10T00:00:00+0000Hench was a physician who helped to discover cortisone, a hormone of the adrenal cortex, and demonstrate its utility for treating rheumatoid arthritis. Early on he hypothesised that steroids could alleviate the pain associated with the disease, but the difficulty and expense of production hindered his ability to try out his theory. The clinical trials were finally carried out in 1948 and 1949. Hench was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work in 1950. He headed up the Department of Rheumatic Diseases at the the Mayo Clinic.1896-02-28T00:00:00+0000Gerty Cori, nee Radnitz, was the third woman to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine and the first woman in America to do so. She shared the prize in 1947 with her husband Cari Cori, for discovering how the body metabolises glycogen, which is important to how the body stores energy. Born into a Jewish family, Cori studied medicine at the Karl-Ferdinands-Universität in Prague, an unusual path for a woman at the time. Throughout her career Cori experienced difficulties because she was a woman. In 1921 she was threatened with dismissal by the director of Roswell Park Cancer Institute if she continued her collaborative research with her husband. Later she struggled to get appointed full-professor at Washington University St Louuis, a position she gained only months before she won the Nobel Prize. 1896-08-15T00:00:00+0000Cori was a biochemist and pharmacologist who, together with his wife Gerty Cori, helped to discover how the body metabolises glycogen, which is important to how the body stores energy. The two of them managed to isolate and purify glycogen phosphorylase, with which they achieved the test-tube synthesis of glycogen in 1943. They hypothesised that liver glycogen first converts to blood glucose and then reconverts to glycogen in the muscle, where it is broken down into lactic acid which provides the energy used in muscle contraction. The Cori's work earned them the 1947 the Nobel Prize for Medicine together with Bernando Hossay. 1896-12-05T00:00:00+0000Hinshelwood was a physical chemist who shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1956 for helping to work out chemical reaction rates and reaction mechanisms. He subsequently did a lot of work on how environmental conditions affected the growth of bacterial cells. His findings on the relationship between the environment and chemical changes inside bacteria cells provided an important pathway to understanding the mechanisms behind bacterial resistance to antibiotics. 1897-06-19T00:00:00+0000The child of Polish-Jewish parents, Reichstein was a chemist who in 1933 managed to synthesise vitamin C. His name is associated now with the industrial process for the artificial synthesis of vitamin C. In 1950 he shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine for helping to isolate and explain the function of the hormones of the adrenal cortex and its therapeutic value for treating rheumatoid arthritis. He spent the last three decades of his life working on the phytochemistry and cytology of ferns. 1897-07-20T00:00:00+0000Kuhne was a German physiologist who coined the term 'enzyme' after his discovery of the protein-digesting enzyme trypsin in 1876. Early on in his career Kuhne worked on the physiology of muscle. In later years he turned to looking at the chemistry of digestion. Kuhne is also known for having helped to elucidate the chemical changes that occur in the retina under the influence of light. 1900-06-10T00:00:00+0000Kuhn was a biochemist who won 1938 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on carostenoids, a group of nonnitrogenous yellow, orange and red pigments found in nature. One of these he found to be necessary for the fertilisation of certain algae. He was also awarded the Prize based on his work to determine the constitution of vitamin B2 which he isolated. He later also helped isolate vitamin B6. Initially Kuhn turned down the Nobel Prize because he was forbidden to accept it by the Nazis with whom he collaborated in the denouncement of three of his Jewish colleagues. He finally accepted the Prize after World War II. Kuhn is also credited with the discovery of Soman, a deadly nerve agent, in 1944. 1900-12-03T00:00:00+0000du Vigneaud was a biochemist whose research focused on sulfur, proteins and peptides. In late 1940s he helped isolate and synthesise two pituitary hormones: vasopressin and oxytocin. Vasopressin is an antidiuretic hormone that helps protect cells from sudden increases or decreases in water which can affect the cell's function. Oxytocin is a neurohormone that helps contract the uterus during labour and stimulate the secretion of milk during lactation. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1955 for this work. Prior to this, in the 1930s, he helped identify the chemical structure of insulin and worked out the structure of biotin, a sulfur-bearing vitamin. 1901-05-18T00:00:00+0000A Swedish biochemist, Tiselius devised electrophoresis, a technique used to separate charged macromolecules like DNA, RNA and proteins according to their size. Electrophoresis is a chromatography technique that uses an electric field to separate a mixture of charged molecules. Tiselius also pioneered synthetic blood plasma. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1948 on the back of this work. 1902-08-10T00:00:00+0000Theorell trained in medicine and dedicated his career to understanding enzymes. He won the 1955 Nobel Prize for Medicine for 'discoveries concerning the nature and mode of action of oxidation enzymes.' He made the breakthrough in 1935. He was able to show that a yellow-coloured enzyme had two parts, both of which were essential to its function. Kossel's work laid the foundation for advances in understanding ADH enzymes which break down alcohol in the kidney. 1903-07-06T00:00:00+0000Gwei-djen was a biochemist who undertook pioneering work on metabolic pathways. In 1933, Gwei-djen took the bold decision to leave China, then isolated from the West, to study for a doctorate at Cambridge University where she remained for the rest of her career. By 1939 she had developed the first sensitive assay for detecting low levels of pyruvic acid, an intermediate involved in the breakdown of carbohydrates. Her work demonstrated that the levels of pyruvic acid could be raised by vitamin B1 deficiency and exercise. Gwei-djen worked closely with both Dorothy and Joseph Needham. Together with Joseph she compiled a series of books detailing Chinese achievements in science and technology.1904-07-22T00:00:00+0000Stanley was a biochemist and virologist. In 1935 he managed to crystalise the tobacco virus, the causative agent of plant disease. This was a major breakthrough because prior to this no scientists had succeeded in finding out what viruses were. His work laid the foundation for other scientists, using x-ray diffraction, to work out the precise molecular structures and reproduction process of several viruses. During World War II he managed to purify several of the most common influenza viruses and developed a vaccine that was partly effective. In 1946 he shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the 'preparation of enzymes and virus proteins in a pure form.'1904-08-16T00:00:00+0000Folkers was a biochemist who is best known for his role in the isolation of vitamin B12, which was inspired by the discovery it could help in the treatment of pernicious anaemia. This he did in the late 1940s while working in the research laboratories of Merck and Co. Folkers and his team at Merck went on to discover mevalonic acid, which plays a key role in the production of numerous important biochemical compounds, including carotenoids, steroids, and terpenes. They also isolated the two antibiotics: cathomycin and cyclorserine. 1906-09-01T00:00:00+0000Leloir was an Argentinian physician and biochemist who won the 1970 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for identifying nucleotides that are fundamental to the metabolism of carbohydrates. He made the discovery in 1948 while working with colleagues at the Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de la Fundación Campomar. While strapped for resources and equipment, Leloir and his team managed to determine the chemical origins of sugar synthesis in yeast and the oxidation of fatty acids in the liver. Leloir was the founder and director of the Instituto Campomar from 1947 to 1987. He was responsible for transforming the institute into an internationally renowned research hub for biochemistry. 1906-09-06T00:00:00+0000Levi-Montalcini is best known for sharing the Nobel Prize in 1986 for helping to discover and isolate the nerve growth factor which helps regulate the growth, maintenance, proliferation and survival of certain neurons. Banned by Mussolini from working in academia because she was Jewish, Levi-Montalcini conducted much of her early work in a makeshift laboratory in her bedroom. She later became the director of the Research Center of Neurobiology and the Laboratory of Cellular Biology in Washington University and founded the European Brain Research Institute. 1909-04-22T00:00:00+0000Dorothy Hodgkin, was a British chemist who pioneered protein crystallography, a technique the uses x-ray crystallography to determine the three dimensional structure of protein crystals. She used the technique to confirm the structure of penicillin, in 1945, for which she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964. Hodgkin was the third woman to win the Nobel Prize. In addition to penicillin, Hodgkin published the first structure of a steroid and deciphered the structure of vitamin B12 and insulin. Her protein crystallography technique is now an essential tool for research into structural biology.1910-05-12T00:00:00+0000Lehmann was a biochemist who was renowned for his studies on the distribution of abnormal haemoglobins in many different human populations. This grew out of his interest in anaemia, begun when he served as assistant director of pathology to the North East India Command between 1942 and 1947. He helped to discover a high incidence in the sickle-cell trait in several aboriginal southern Indian populations. Based on his work he hypothesised that the gene for the trait could have been brought to Africa from India during prehistoric migrations.1910-07-08T00:00:00+0000Lynen was a biochemist who was director of the Max Plank Institute for Cellular Chemistry. He helped determine the chemical mechanism for the production and regulation of cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism. In 1964 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for this work. His findings opened the pathway to understanding the role of cholesterol in heart disease and stroke. 1911-04-06T00:00:00+0000A biochemist, Calvin shared the 1961 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for helping to demonstrate the chemical pathways of photosynthesis. Using the radioactive isotope carbon-14 as a tracer he was able to show the carbon movements through a plant during the photosynthesis process. He began his work on photosynthesis in 1946. Prior to this Calvin and his wife, Genevieve Jentegaard, investigated the chemical factors in the RH blood group system and managed to determine the structure of one of the Rh antigens. 1911-04-08T00:00:00+0000Stein was a biochemist who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize for contributing to understanding the composition and functioning of ribonuclease, an enzyme that catalyses the break down of RNA into smaller components. It was the first structure and sequence worked out for any enzyme. Stein carried out the work with his colleague Stanford Moore in 1963. The two scientists were aided by their invention of the first means for automated amino acid analysis. In addition to his work on ribonuclease, Stein showed how proteins that are comprised of the same amino acids can have very different characteristics and functions. 1911-06-25T00:00:00+0000Bloch was a biochemist who shared the 1964 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for helping to uncover the mechanism and regulation of cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism. This work laid the foundation for understanding the relationship between blood cholesterol levels and atherosclerosis, a disease in which plaque builds up inside the body's arteries. 1912-01-21T00:00:00+0000A biochemist, Moore helped develop the first automated amino acid analyser in 1958. The machine transformed the ability to analyse the amino acid sequences of proteins. Together with William H Stein, Moore used the machine to determine the amino acid sequence of the ribonuclease molecule. Moore shared the 1972 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for this work. 1913-09-04T00:00:00+0000Perutz fled Austria in 1936 with his Jewish family just after he completed a degree in chemistry at the University of Vienna. Moving to Britain he became involved in X-ray crystallography at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, using the method to study the structure of proteins. In 1959 he managed to work out the structure of haemoglobin, the protein responsible for transporting oxygen in blood. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for this work in 1962. His research paved the way to understanding how the molecule switches between its deoxygenated and its oxygenated states and oxygen is taken up by muscles and other organs. Pertuz was also the founder and first director of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biololgy in Cambridge, set up in 1962.1914-05-19T00:00:00+0000Synge was an English biochemist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the invention of liquid-liquid paper partition chromatography, a technique used to separate mixtures of closely related chemicals such as amino acids. The technique revolutionised analytical chemistry. By 1948 Synge had managed to work out the exact structure of S gramicidin, a simple protein molecule, using the partition technique. Fred Sanger used this work in his elucidation of the structure of insulin in 1955. 1914-10-28T00:00:00+0000Bergstrom was a biochemist who shared the 1982 Nobel Prize for Medicine for isolating and elucidating the chemical structure of prostaglandins which is found in most tissues and organs in humans and mammals. Bergstrom helped show that prostaglandins form from unsaturated fatty acids and their important role in many physiological processes in the body, including causing inflammation after injury or illness, the clotting of blood and uterine contractions. His work revealed that prostaglandins act locally near their site of production, act differently in different tissues and are metabolised very quickly. This opened up new pathways for the treatment of heart disease, strokes and gastric ulcers. It also paved the way to the development of the morning-after pill and inhibitor compounds that help relieve the pain caused by menstruation, gallstones or kidney stones.1916-01-10T00:00:00+0000Kendrew was a biochemist and crystallogapher. He is best known for elucidating the structure of myoglobin, a protein that stores oxygen in muscle cells, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in 1962. In 1963 he helped found the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and later was its director. For many years he was also the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Molecular Biology, 1917-03-24T00:00:00+0000Buchner was a chemist and zymologist. In 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his discovery of cell-free fermentation. This was based on some experiments he carried out in 1897, during which he found that yeast extract could form alcohol from a sugar solution without any living cells. He discovered that the fermentation was driven by an enzyme, zymase, inside the yeast cells. It provided the first evidence that biochemical processes were driven by enzymes formed inside cells. He was killed in the First World War while serving as a general. 1917-08-13T00:00:00+0000Boyer was a biochemist and analytical chemist renowned for helping to understand the enzymatic mechanism involved in the production of the energy-storage molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which fuels the metabolic processes of all living things. This he did in the 1970s while based at UCLA where he was the founding director of the university's Molecular Biology Institute. In 1997 Boyer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on ATP synthesis. 1918-07-31T00:00:00+0000Krebs was a biochemist who in 1933 was forced to leave Nazi Germany because his father was Jewish. He is best known for having discovered two important chemical reactions in the body - the urea cycle and the citric acid cycle. These chemical reactions help break down food molecules into carbon dioxide, water and energy. He made the breakthrough in the 1930s. The process is known as the Krebs cycle. Krebs was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1954.1918-08-25T00:00:00+0000Skou was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1997 for discovering an ion-transporting enzyme called sodium-potassium-activated adenosine triphosphatase (Na+-K+ ATPase), which is found in the plasma membrane of animal cells. The enzyme is important to the transport of molecules through a cell's membrane. Skou made the discovery in the late 1950s. A number of other similar ATPase-based enzymes were discovered later, including one that helps control muscle contraction. 1918-10-08T00:00:00+0000Horwitz was a chemist who is best known for having synthesised the compound zidovudine (commonly called AZT). Originally Horwitz developed the compound to be an anti-cancer drug in 1964, but it failed to show anticancer activity. Other researchers discovered the drug could prolong the life of AIDS patients. Approved for AIDS in 1987 by the US FDA, AZT transformed AIDS from being fatal into a chronic condition. Horwitz also developed didanosine and stauvidine, antiviral drugs that are used to treat HIV/AIDS.1919-01-16T00:00:00+0000Tsvet was a Russian-Italian botanist who is credited with the invention of adsorption chromatography. He first described the method in 1901. His technique involved using ether and alcohol to extract plant pigments from leaves and then passing the resulting solution through a column of calcium carbonate. The advantage of the process was that it separated pigments into different coloured bands. By using the process Tsvet was able to demonstrate that plants had two forms of chlorophyll and eight additional pigments. Chromatography is now an important laboratory technique for the separation of a mixture. 1919-06-26T00:00:00+0000Fischer was a German chemist who opened up the era of biochemistry by clarifying the structure of sugars and enzymes and elaborating how they were formed. In 1902 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for demonstrating the structure of biological compounds, including sugars proteins and purines. He synthesised many natural occurring molecules for the first time, including glucose, caffeine, and uric acid. In addition, he managed to synthesis several amino acids and created small chains of them as precursors to protein formation. Fisher is also associated with the idea of the 'lock and key' mechanism which is used to explain how enzymes catalyse certain reactions and not others. 1919-07-15T00:00:00+0000Benesch was a biochemist. He is best known for the discovery he made with his wife, Ruth Benesch in 1967 which showed how haemoglobin transports oxygen during respiration. They demonstrated that 2,3-diphosphoglycerate, an organic phosphorous compound, plays a pivotal role in loosening the bonds between haemoglobin and oxygen which improves the flow of oxygen from blood to the tissues. Their work opened up a new era in research on the physiology of respiratory carriage and new insights into sickle-cell anaemia. 1919-08-13T00:00:00+0000Fischer was a biochemist. He is best known for helping to discover and describe reversible protein phosphorylation, a biological and chemical reaction that regulates the activities of cell proteins. This he did with Edwin Krebs at the University of Washington. Their work helped illustrate how life exists at the cellular level. They were both awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1992.1920-04-06T00:00:00+0000Mitchell was a biochemist who won the 1978 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for helping to show how the enzymes adenosine diphosphate (ADP), is converted into the energy-carrying compound adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in the mitrochondria of living cells. He demonstrated this in the 1960s. 1920-09-29T00:00:00+0000Daly trained as a biochemist and was the first Black American woman to earn a doctorate in chemistry (from Columbia University, 1947). Her early research looked at the effects of cholesterol on the mechanisms of the heart, the effects sugars and other nutrients on the health of the arteries and the impact of advanced aged and hypertension on the circulatory system. This she did at Rockefeller Institute in New York. She subsequently joined Columbia University where she investigated how proteins are produced and organised in the cell. In addition to her scientific work, Daly was an ardent campaigner for getting minority students into medical school and graduate science programmes. 1921-04-16T00:00:00+0000Merrifield was a biochemist and organic chemist. In 1984 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for inventing a process known as solid phase peptide synthesis. He developed the technique in 1965. It provided a methodology for chemical synthesis on a solid matrix. By the mid-1960s he and his team had proved the method could be used to synthesise bradykinin, angiotensin, desamino-oxytocin and insulin. In 1969 they managed to synthesise the enzyme, ribonuclease A. This was the first proof of the chemical nature of enzymes. Merrifield's method is now a rountine method for automatically synthesising large proteins, novel nucleotides, or short fragments of DNA.1921-07-15T00:00:00+0000Takamine was a Japanese scientist. He was the first to isolate and purify the hormone adrenalin from animal glands. It was the first effective bronchodilator for asthma. This he achieved in 1901 while working for the division of chemistry at the Department of Agriculture and Commerce in Japan. It was the first pure hormone isolated from a natural source. 1922-07-22T00:00:00+0000Cohen is a biochemist who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1986 for helping to isolate the nerve growth factor that induces the differentiation of nerve tissue. In 1993 he discovered epidermal growth factor, a protein that stimulates cell growth and differentiation. Cohen's research on cellular growth factors has provided new avenues for understanding cancer growth and enabled the design of new treatments for cancer. 1922-11-17T00:00:00+0000Benesch was a biochemist who helped discover how haemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells, transports oxygen from the lungs to all cells in the body. This she did with her husband Reinhold in 1967. They subsequently made important breakthroughs into the formation of sickle cells, the cause of sickle-cell anaemia, using the electron microscope. Ruth was one of the 10,000 Jewish children who escaped Nazi Germany to England as part of the Kindertransport programme. 1925-02-25T00:00:00+0000Rose was a biochemist who shared the 2004 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for contributing to understandings about how cells break down proteins. He first became interested in the puzzle of how cells identify and destroy unwanted proteins in the 1950s. In the late 1970s he showed that ubiquitin, a protein present in countless tissues, helped tag other proteins that needed to be destroyed. It would then attach itself to another protein that was no longer functioning and take it to the proteasome chamber to be broken down and recycled. Rose also helped in the development of a drug to treat multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. The drug works by disrupting the protein disposal mechanism and kills the cancer cells with a pile-up of protein.1926-07-16T00:00:00+0000Schally was an endocrinologist who won the 1977 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for isolating and synthesising three hormones produced by the hypothalmus in the brain which control the activities of hormone producing glands. The hormones he worked on were TRH (thyrotropin-releasing hormone), LHRH (luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone), and the peptide somatostatin. His work led to recognition of the hypothalmus as the controlling factor of the pituitary gland and opened a new chapter for research into fertility, contraception, diabetes, abnormal growth, mental retardation as well as depression and other mental disorders. 1926-11-30T00:00:00+0000Gilbert is a molecular biologist. He was involved in some of the early efforts to pioneer techniques for determining base sequences in nucleic acids, known known as DNA sequencing, for which he shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1980. He was the first scientist to propose the existence of intron and exons. In 1986 Gilbert became a proponent of the theory that the first forms of life evolved out of replicating RNA molecules. The same year he began campaigning to set up the Human Genome Project. He was also a co-founder and the first Chief Executive Officer of Biogen, a biotechnology company originally set up to commercialise genetic engineering.1932-03-21T00:00:00+0000Sanuelson is a Swedish biochemist who helped isolate, identify and determine the function of prostaglandins. These are a family group of compounds that regulate blood pressure, body temperature, allergic reactions and other physiological actions in mammals. He also discovered a number of new prostaglandins, including thrombaxane, which helps with blood clotting and the contraction of blood vessels. The bulk of this work he did in the 1960s and 1970s, for which he was awarded the 1982 Nobel Prize for Medicine. His later work concerned leukotrienes, a group of lipids closely related to prostaglandins that are involved in inflammation, looking for agents that could inhibit their actions. 1934-05-21T00:00:00+0000Macleod was a Scottish physician and biochemist who was a key adviser in the original experiments carried out by Frederick Grant Banting and Charles Best to establish the use of insulin as a treatment for diabetes. Macleod provided the laboratory space and experimental animals for the work. He was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for helping develop insulin therapy for diabetes in 1923. 1935-03-16T00:00:00+0000Hershko is a biochemist who shared the 2004 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for discovering the ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation. In this process the ubiquitin protein attaches itself to unwanted proteins during cell division, helping to remove those that are no longer useful. In addition to aiding cell division, ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation plays a role in many other critical biochemical processes and disease can set in when it does not work normally. Cystic fibrosis is one example of a disease that results from the malfunctioning of the protein-degradation system. 1937-12-31T00:00:00+0000Chlorophyll is a natural green pigment that is responsible for photosynthesis in plants. It was patented by Benjamin Gruskin at Temple University. He proposed that chlorophyll could be used as a topical treatment or injected into the bloodstream tissues to kill off bacteria. Chlorophyll molecules are now used as a photosensitiser for cancer therapy.1938-06-14T00:00:00+0000A biochemist and physicist, Wurtrich won the Nobel Prize in Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2002 for developing nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to determine the 3D structure of large biological molecules in solution. The method involved placing a small sample in a very strong magnetic field and subjecting it to radio waves. The structure is worked out by working out the radio waves emitted by the nuclei of certain atoms in the molecule. 1938-10-04T00:00:00+0000Yonath is a biochemist who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2009 for helping to map the structure of ribosomes, the molecule that helps translate RNA into protein. She started the research in the 1970s using x-ray crystallography. By 2001 she had worked out the complete high-resolution of structures of both ribosomal subunits and discovered a region important to the process of polypeptide polymerisation. In addition to this work Yonath had elucidated the modes of action of over 20 different antibiotics that target the ribosome, which has provided insights into the mechanisms of drug resistance and antibiotic sensitivity. 1939-06-22T00:00:00+0000Goldstein was a biochemist who shared the 1985 Nobel Prize for Medicine with Michael S Brown for discovering how cholesterol metabolism is regulated. They worked out that human cells have low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptors that extract cholesterol from the bloodstream. Insufficient LDL receptors are associated with familial hypercholesterolomia which heavily predisposes sufferers to cholesterol-related disease. Their work helped lay the foundation for the development of statin drugs to lower cholesterol. 1940-04-18T00:00:00+0000Harden was one of the key founders of British biochemistry. He won the 1929 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for working out the importance of two enzymes and phosphoric acid during the fermentation process. These he discovered while investigating the fermentation of sugars by bacteria, a project undertaken between 1900 and 1914 that was designed to find a way of differentiating between different groups of Escherichia coli. The work involved grinding bacteria and extracting the intracellular juices. 1940-06-17T00:00:00+0000Steitz is a biochemist and biophysicist who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for elucidating the atomic structure and function of ribosomes, tiny particles made up of RNA and proteins involved in protein synthesis. He and colleagues determined this in 2000 using x-ray crystallography. The work opened up a new pathway to the discovery and development of new classes of antibiotics. 1940-08-23T00:00:00+0000Walker shared the 1997 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for describing the enzymatic process that creates adenosine triphosphate, an energy-carrying molecule found in the cells of all living things. He started work in this area in the 1970s and by 1994 had managed to work out with colleagues the three-dimensional structure of the enzyme using x-ray crystallography. 1941-01-07T00:00:00+0000Brown is a geneticist who shared the 1985 Nobel Prize with Joseph L Goldstein for discovering how cholesterol metabolism is regulated. They determined that human cells have low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptors that extract cholesterol from the bloodstream. Insufficient LDL receptors are associated with familial hypercholesterolomia which heavily predisposes sufferers to cholesterol-related disease. Their work helped lay the foundation for the development of statin drugs to lower cholesterol. 1941-04-13T00:00:00+0000Banting was a Canadian physician who helped discover and isolate insulin. He also pioneered the extraction of insulin from pigs and cattle and demonstrated its use to treat diabetes in dogs. In 1923 he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this work. 1944-02-21T00:00:00+0000Hopkins was a British biochemist who shared the 1929 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering vitamins and demonstrating they are an important nutrient in the diet. This was based on experiments he carried out on rats in 1901. He also helped establish the chemistry of muscle contraction, showing that lactic acid accumulates in working muscle in 1907. In 1922 he isolated and demonstrated the importance of tripeptide gluathione to the utilisation of oxygen by the cell. 1947-05-16T00:00:00+0000Michel is a biochemist who shared the 1988 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for determining the structure of proteins essential for photosynthesis. This was based on experiments he helped conduct between 1982 and 1985 which involved the use of x-ray crystallography to determine the three-dimensional structure of a protein complex found in certain photosynthetic bacteria. 1948-07-18T00:00:00+0000A biochemist and cell biologist by training, Rothman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2013. He received the Prize for helping to show how vesicles - small sac-like structures inside cells that carry hormones, growth factors and other molecules- determine when they have reached their correct destination to release their contents. This mechanism is vital to many key physiological functions, including cellular division, the secretion of hormones like insulin, communication between nerve cells in the brain and nutrient uptake. When this process breaks down it can lead to conditions like diabetes and botulism. 1950-11-03T00:00:00+0000Tsien was a Chinese-American biochemist who shared the 2008 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery and development of genetically programmable fluorescent tags. These multicoloured fluorescent proteins, developed in Tsien's laboratory between 1994 and 1998, provide a means to observe in real-time different phenomena in living cells and organisms, including gene expression, protein-protein interactions, cell division, chromosome replication and organisation, intracellular pathways, organelle inheritance and biogenesis. 1952-02-01T00:00:00+0000An American biochemist, Cohn developed a fractionation technique to separate blood into its components, paving the way to safer blood transfusion. During World War II he worked out methods for isolating serum albumin from blood plasma which is crucial to maintaining osmotic pressure in blood vessels and preventing their collapse. Thousands of soldiers were successfully treated on the battlefield with transfusions of purified albumin. Cohn subsequently developed mechanisms so that every component of blood could be used in transfusions.1953-10-01T00:00:00+0000Fleming was a Scottish biologist and microbiologist. He first made his mark through his discovery of lysosyme in 1923. This is an enzyme produced in the tears, saliva, mucus and human milk which is an important part of the immune system. Today he is best known for having found penicillin, a mould subsequently developed as the first antibiotic drug to treat bacterial diseases. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1945 for this discovery.1955-03-11T00:00:00+0000Sumner was an American biochemist who showed that enzymes are proteins and can be crystalised, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1946. He crystalised his first enzyme, urease, in 1926. This he achieved by mixing purified urease with acetone and then chilling it. Using chemical tests he showed the enzyme was a protein. His work provided the first proof that enzymes are proteins. 1955-08-12T00:00:00+0000Moore was an American zoologist who devoted his career to studying the reoproductive tract of male mammals and the physiology of spermatozoa. He played a pivotal role in 1929 in isolating the testicular secretion containing the male sex hormones andresterone and testosterone. This discovery opened up the path to researching the chemical composition of the hormones and their production. 1955-10-16T00:00:00+0000MacKinnon is a molecular neurobiologist amnd biophysicist. In 1998 he helped to establish the 3-D structure of a potassium ion channel - a protein linked to transmitting electrical signals down the nerve and muscle cells. Such channels are important to the nervous system and the heart. They enable potassium ions to cross the cell membrane. By using X-ray crystallography MacKinnon and his colleagues managed to work out the structure of a potassium ion channel from an actinobacteria Streptomyces lividans. MacKinnon was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2003 on the basis of this work. 1956-02-19T00:00:00+0000Gerty Cori, nee Radnitz, was the third woman to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine and the first woman in America to do so. She shared the prize in 1947 with her husband Cari Cori, for discovering how the body metabolises glycogen, which is important to how the body stores energy. Born into a Jewish Czech family, Cori studied medicine at the Karl-Ferdinands-Universität in Prague, an unusual path for a woman at the time. Throughout her career Cori experienced difficulties because she was a woman. In 1921 she was threatened with dismissal by the director of Roswell Park Cancer Institute if she continued her collaborative research with her husband, Later she struggled to be appointed full-professor at Washington University St Louuis, a position she gained only months before she won the Nobel Prize.1957-10-26T00:00:00+0000Windraus was a German steroid chemist who helped discover 7-dehydrocholesterol, the chemical precursor of vitamin D in 1926. He showed that exposure to sunlight converted the molecule into vitamin D. His finding explained why sunlight was important to preventing rickets, a bone disease that afflicts humans who have a vitamin D deficiency. In 1928 Windraus was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on sterols and their relation to vitamins. He also helped work out the chemical steps involved in the transformation of cholesterol to vitamin D3 1959-06-09T00:00:00+0000Euler-Chelpin was a German-born Swedish biochemist who shared the Nobel Prize in 1929 for working out the role of enzymes in the fermentation of sugar. His work laid the foundation for understanding the important processes that take place in the muscles for supplying energy. He also helped show that colouring agents like betacaronoids in vegetables get transformed into vitamin A in the body. 1964-11-06T00:00:00+0000Hench was a physician who helped to discover cortisone, a hormone of the adrenal cortex, and demonstrate its utility for treating rheumatoid arthritis. Early on he hypothesised that steroids could alleviate the pain associated with the disease, but the difficulty and expense of production hindered his ability to try out his theory. The clinical trials were finally carried out in 1948 and 1949. Hench was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work in 1950. He headed up the Department of Rheumatic Diseases at the the Mayo Clinic. 1965-03-30T00:00:00+0000Collip was a Canadian biochemist refined methods to remove and purify insulin. By experimenting with bovine pancreas in 1921, Colip found a way of producing insulin in a form that was suitable for clinical use in patients. He subsequently managed to isolate the parathyroid hormone that regulates serum calcium through its effects on bone, kidney and intestine. In addition he devised a method for measuring serum calcium. 1965-06-19T00:00:00+0000Kuhn was an Austrian-Hungarian biochemist who won the 1938 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on carostenoids, a group of nonnitrogenous yellow, orange and red pigments found in nature. One of these he found to be necessary for the fertilisation of certain algae. He was also awarded the Prize based on his work to determine the constitution of vitamin B2 which he isolated. He later also helped isolate vitamin B6. Initially Kuhn turned down the Nobel Prize because he was forbidden to accept it by the Nazis with whom he collaborated in the denouncement of three of his Jewish colleagues. He finally accepted the Prize after World War II. Kuhn is also credited with the discovery of Soman, a deadly nerve agent, in 1944.1967-08-01T00:00:00+0000Hinshelwood was a British physical chemist who shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1956 for helping to work out chemical reaction rates and reaction mechanisms. He subsequently did a lot of work on how environmental conditions affected the growth of bacterial cells. His findings on the relationship between the environment and chemical changes inside bacteria cells provided an important pathway to understanding the mechanisms behind bacterial resistance to antibiotics. 1967-10-09T00:00:00+0000Stanley was an American biochemist and virologist. In 1935 he managed to crystalise the tobacco virus, the causative agent of plant disease. This was a major breakthrough because prior to this no scientists had succeeded in finding out what viruses were. His work laid the foundation for other scientists, using x-ray diffraction, to work out the precise molecular structures and reproduction process of several viruses. During World War II he managed to purify several of the most common influenza viruses and developed a vaccine that was partly effective. In 1946 he shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the 'preparation of enzymes and virus proteins in a pure form.' 1971-06-15T00:00:00+0000A Swedish biochemist, Tiselius devised electrophoresis, a technique used to separate charged macromolecules like DNA, RNA and proteins according to their size. Electrophoresis is a chromatography technique that uses an electric field to separate a mixture of charged molecules. Tiselius also pioneered synthetic blood plasma. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1948 on the back of this work.1971-10-29T00:00:00+0000du Vigneaud was an American biochemist whose research focused on sulfur, proteins and peptides. In late 1940s he helped isolate and synthesise two pituitary hormones: vasopressin and oxytocin. Vasopressin is an antidiuretic hormone that helps protect cells from sudden increases or decreases in water which can affect the cell's function. Oxytocin is a neurohormone that helps contract the uterus during labour and stimulate the secretion of milk during lactation. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1955 for this work. Prior to this, in the 1930s, he helped identify the chemical structure of insulin and worked out the structure of biotin, a sulfur-bearing vitamin.1978-12-11T00:00:00+0000Lynen was a German biochemist who was director of the Max Plank Institute for Cellular Chemistry. He helped determine the chemical mechanism for the production and regulation of cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism. In 1964 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for this work. His findings opened the pathway to understanding the role of cholesterol in heart disease and stroke. 1979-08-06T00:00:00+0000Stein was an American biochemist who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize for contributing to understanding the composition and functioning of ribonuclease, an enzyme that catalyses the break down of RNA into smaller components. It was the first structure and sequence worked out for any enzyme. Stein carried out the work with his colleague Stanford Moore in 1963. The two scientists were aided by their invention of the first means for automated amino acid analysis. In addition to his work on ribonuclease, Stein showed how proteins that are comprised of the same amino acids can have very different characteristics and functions.1980-02-02T00:00:00+0000Krebs was a biochemist who in 1933 was forced to leave Nazi Germany because his father was Jewish. He is best known for having discovered two important chemical reactions in the body - the urea cycle and the citric acid cycle. These chemical reactions help break down food molecules into carbon dioxide, water and energy. He made the breakthrough in the 1930s. The process is known as the Krebs cycle. Krebs was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1954.1981-11-22T00:00:00+0000Theorell trained in medicine and dedicated his career to understanding enzymes. He won the 1955 Nobel Prize for Medicine for 'discoveries concerning the nature and mode of action of oxidation enzymes.' He made the breakthrough in 1935. He was able to show that a yellow-coloured enzyme had two parts, both of which were essential to its function. Kossel's work laid the foundation for advances in understanding ADH enzymes which break down alcohol in the kidney. 1982-08-15T00:00:00+0000An American biochemist, Moore helped develop the first automated amino acid analyser in 1958. The machine transformed the ability to analyse the amino acid sequences of proteins. Together with William H Stein, Moore used the machine to determine the amino acid sequence of the ribonuclease molecule. Moore shared the 1972 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for this work. 1982-08-23T00:00:00+0000Collip was a Canadian biochemist refined methods to remove and purify insulin. By experimenting with bovine pancreas in 1921, Colip found a way of producing insulin in a form that was suitable for clinical use in patients. He subsequently managed to isolate the parathyroid hormone that regulates serum calcium through its effects on bone, kidney and intestine. In addition he devised a method for measuring serum calcium. 1982-11-20T00:00:00+0000Harger was an American biochemist and toxicologist who invented the the first practical test for measuring alcohol levels in drivers. He developed this in 1931. Known as the Drunkometer, the test collected a sample of a driver's breath directly into a balloon. This was then pumped into an acidifed potassium permanganate solution. If any alcohol was present in the sample the solution changed colour. Harger's test greatly helped reduce the number of road deaths from drunk driving.1983-08-08T00:00:00+0000Synthesised by a team led by Philip Felgner at Syntex Research the lipid was a major breakthrough because natural lipids are usually negatively or neutrally charged. The new lipid formed into positively charged liposome which fused more easily with negatively charged cell membranes to deliver drugs directly into a cell. 1984-01-01T00:00:00+0000Lehmann was a biochemist renowned for his studies on the distribution of abnormal haemoglobins in many different human populations. This grew out of his interest in anaemia, begun when he served as assistant director of pathology to the North East India Command between 1942 and 1947. He helped to discover a high incidence in the sickle-cell trait in several aboriginal southern Indian populations. Based on his work he hypothesised that the gene for the trait could have been brought to Africa from India during prehistoric migrations.1985-07-13T00:00:00+0000Rose was an American biochemist and nutrition. He isolated the amino acid threonine in 1932 and demonstrated in rats that a diet that lacked the amino acid stunted their growth. By 1949 he had established that ten amino acids were vital to human health: histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan and valine. Based on this work he was appointed to the US Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council which drew up dietary recommendations. 1985-09-25T00:00:00+0000Albert Szent-Gyorgyi was a Hungarian-American biochemist who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937 for isolating vitamin C and determining the components and reactions of the citric acid cycle. He subsequently worked on the biophysics of muscle movement and discovered the biochemical nature of muscular contraction. His findings revolutionised the field of muscle research. Later on he explored the connections between free radicals and cancer.1986-10-22T00:00:00+0000Doisy was a biochemist who helped isolate two forms of vitamin K and determine their chemical structure in 1936-39, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1943. The fact that Vitamin K helps promote blood-clotting means it is used widely in surgery and medicine. Doisy also helped isolate the sex hormones estrone (1929), estriol (1935), and estradiol (1935). 1986-10-23T00:00:00+0000Benesch was a Polish-American Jewish biochemist. He is best known for the discovery he made with his wife, Ruth Benesch, in 1967 which showed how haemoglobin transports oxygen during respiration. They demonstrated that 2,3-diphosphoglycerate, an organic phosphorous compound, plays a pivotal role in loosening the bonds between haemoglobin and oxygen which improves the flow of oxygen from blood to the tissues. Their work opened up a new era in research on the physiology of respiratory carriage and new insights into sickle-cell anaemia.1986-12-30T00:00:00+0000Northrop shared the 1946 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for helping to develop the technique for purifying and crystallising enzymes and virus proteins. His work showed that enzymes obey the laws of chemical reactions and that they are proteins. In 1930 he crystallised pepsin, an enzyme present in gastric juice necessary for digestion. Eight years later he isolated the first bacterial virus (bacteriophage). This he proved to be a nucleoprotein. Other enzymes that he managed to isolate and crystalise were trypsin and chymotrypsin, both important to the digestive process. 1987-05-27T00:00:00+0000Leloir was an Argentinian physician and biochemist who won the 1970 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for identifying nucleotides that are fundamental to the metabolism of carbohydrates. He made the discovery in 1948 while working with colleagues at the Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de la Fundación Campomar. While strapped for resources and equipment, Leloir and his team managed to determine the chemical origins of sugar synthesis in yeast and the oxidation of fatty acids in the liver. Leloir was the founder and director of the Instituto Campomar from 1947 to 1987. He was responsible for transforming the institute into an internationally renowned research hub for biochemistry.1987-12-02T00:00:00+0000Gwei-djen was a Chinese biochemist who undertook pioneering work on metabolic pathways. In 1933, Gwei-djen took the bold decision to leave China, then isolated from the West, to study for a doctorate at Cambridge University where she remained for the rest of her career. By 1939 she had developed the first sensitive assay for detecting low levels of pyruvic acid, an intermediate involved in the breakdown of carbohydrates. Her work demonstrated that the levels of pyruvic acid could be raised by vitamin B1 deficiency and exercise. Gwei-djen worked closely with both Dorothy and Joseph Needham. Together with Joseph she compiled a series of books detailing Chinese achievements in science and technology. 1991-11-28T00:00:00+0000Mitchell was a British biochemist who won the 1978 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for helping to show how the enzymes adenosine diphosphate (ADP), is converted into the energy-carrying compound adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in the mitrochondria of living cells. He demonstrated this in the 1960s.1992-04-10T00:00:00+0000Dorothy Hodgkin, was a British chemist who pioneered protein crystallography, a technique the uses x-ray crystallography to determine the three dimensional structure of protein crystals. She used the technique to confirm the structure of penicillin, in 1945, for which she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964. Hodgkin was the third woman to win the Nobel Prize. In addition to penicillin, Hodgkin published the first structure of a steroid and deciphered the structure of vitamin B12 and insulin. Her protein crystallography technique is now an essential tool for research into structural biology.1994-07-29T00:00:00+0000Synge was an English biochemist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the invention of liquid-liquid paper partition chromatography, a technique used to separate mixtures of closely related chemicals such as amino acids. The technique revolutionised analytical chemistry. By 1948 Synge had managed to work out the exact structure of S gramicidin, a simple protein molecule, using the partition technique. Fred Sanger used this work in his elucidation of the structure of insulin in 1955. 1994-08-18T00:00:00+0000The child of Polish-Jewish parents, Reichstein was a chemist who in 1933 managed to synthesise vitamin C. His name is associated now with the industrial process for the artificial synthesis of vitamin C. In 1950 he shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine for helping to isolate and explain the function of the hormones of the adrenal cortex and its therapeutic value for treating rheumatoid arthritis. He spent the last three decades of his life working on the phytochemistry and cytology of ferns. '.1996-08-01T00:00:00+0000A biochemist, Calvin shared the 1961 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for helping to demonstrate the chemical pathways of photosynthesis. Using the radioactive isotope carbon-14 as a tracer he was able to show the carbon movements through a plant during the photosynthesis process. He began his work on photosynthesis in 1946. Prior to this Calvin and his wife, Genevieve Jentegaard, investigated the chemical factors in the RH blood group system and managed to determine the structure of one of the Rh antigens.1997-01-08T00:00:00+0000Kendrew was an English biochemist and crystallogapher. He is best known for having elucidated the structure of myoglobin, a protein that stores oxygen in muscle cells, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in 1962. In 1963 he helped found the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and later was its director. For many years he was also the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Molecular Biology,1997-08-23T00:00:00+0000Folkers was an American biochemist who is best known for his role in the isolation of vitamin B12, which was inspired by the discovery it could help in the treatment of pernicious anaemia. This he did in the late 1940s while working in the research laboratories of Merck and Co. Folkers and his team at Merck went on to discover mevalonic acid, which plays a key role in the production of numerous important biochemical compounds, including carotenoids, steroids, and terpenes. They also isolated the two antibiotics: cathomycin and cyclorserine.1997-12-07T00:00:00+0000Benesch was a biochemist who helped discover how haemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells, transports oxygen from the lungs to all cells in the body. This she did with her husband Reinhold in 1967. They subsequently made important breakthroughs into the formation of sickle cells, the cause of sickle cell anaemia, using the electron microscope. Ruth was one of the 10,000 Jewish children who escaped Nazi Germany to England as part of the Kindertransport programme. 2000-03-25T00:00:00+0000Bloch was a German-American biochemist who shared the 1964 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for helping to uncover the mechanism and regulation of cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism. This work laid the foundation for understanding the relationship between blood cholesterol levels and atherosclerosis, a disease in which plaque builds up inside the body's arteries. 2000-10-15T00:00:00+0000J Harms, F Schluenzen, R Zarivach et al, 'High resolution structure of the large ribosomal subunit from a mesophilic eubacterium,' Cell, 107 (2001), 679-88; PMID:11733066.2001-11-30T00:00:00+0000Perutz fled Austria in 1936 with his Jewish family just after he completed a degree in chemistry at the University of Vienna. Moving to Britain he became involved in X-ray crystallography at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, using the method to study the structure of proteins. In 1959 he managed to work out the structure of haemoglobin, the protein responsible for transporting oxygen in blood. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for this work in 1962. His research paved the way to understanding how the molecule switches between its deoxygenated and its oxygenated states and oxygen is taken up by muscles and other organs. Pertuz was also the founder and first director of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biololgy in Cambridge, set up in 1962. 2002-02-06T00:00:00+0000Daly trained as a biochemist and was the first Black American woman to earn a doctorate in chemistry (from Columbia University, 1947). Her early research looked at the effects of cholesterol on the mechanisms of the heart, the effects sugars and other nutrients on the health of the arteries and the impact of advanced aged and hypertension on the circulatory system. This she did at Rockefeller Institute in New York. She subsequently joined Columbia University where she investigated how proteins are produced and organised in the cell. In addition to her scientific work, Daly was an ardent campaigner for getting minority students into medical school and graduate science programmes.2003-10-28T00:00:00+0000Bergstrom was a Swedish biochemist who shared the 1982 Nobel Prize for Medicine for isolating and elucidating the chemical structure of prostaglandins which is found in most tissues and organs in humans and mammals. Bergstrom helped show that prostaglandins form from unsaturated fatty acids and their important role in many physiological processes in the body, including causing inflammation after injury or illness, the clotting of blood and uterine contractions. His work revealed that prostaglandins act locally near their site of production, act differently in different tissues and are metabolised very quickly. This opened up new pathways for the treatment of heart disease, strokes and gastric ulcers. It also paved the way to the development of the morning-after pill and inhibitor compounds that help relieve the pain caused by menstruation, gallstones or kidney stones.2004-08-15T00:00:00+0000Merrifield was an American biochemist and organic chemist. In 1984 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for inventing a process known as solid phase peptide synthesis. He developed the technique in 1965. It provided a methodology for chemical synthesis on a solid matrix. By the mid-1960s he and his team had proved the method could be used to synthesise bradykinin, angiotensin, desamino-oxytocin and insulin. In 1969 they managed to synthesise the enzyme, ribonuclease A. This was the first proof of the chemical nature of enzymes. Merrifield's method is now a rountine method for automatically synthesising large proteins, novel nucleotides, or short fragments of DNA. 2006-05-14T00:00:00+0000Horwitz was an American chemist who is best known for having synthesised the compound zidovudine (commonly called AZT). Originally Horwitz developed the compound to be an anti-cancer drug in 1964, but it failed to show anticancer activity. Other researchers discovered the drug could prolong the life of AIDS patients. Approved for AIDS in 1987 by the US FDA, AZT transformed AIDS from being fatal into a chronic condition. Horwitz also developed didanosine and stauvidine, antiviral drugs that are used to treat HIV/AIDS.2012-09-06T00:00:00+0000Levi-Montalcini is best known for sharing the Nobel Prize in 1986 for helping to discover and isolate the nerve growth factor which helps regulate the growth, maintenance, proliferation and survival of certain neurons. Banned by Mussolini from working in academia because she was Jewish, Levi-Montalcini conducted much of her early work in a makeshift laboratory in her bedroom. She later became the director of the Research Center of Neurobiology and the Laboratory of Cellular Biology in Washington University and founded the European Brain Research Institute. 2012-12-30T00:00:00+0000Rose was an American biochemist who shared the 2004 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for contributing to understandings about how cells break down proteins. He first became interested in the puzzle of how cells identify and destroy unwanted proteins in the 1950s. In the late 1970s he showed that ubiquitin, a protein present in countless tissues, helps tag other proteins that need to be destroyed. It then attaches itself to another protein that is no longer functioning and takes it to the proteasome chamber to be broken down and recycled. Rose also helped develop a drug to treat multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. The drug works by disrupting the protein disposal mechanism and kills the cancer cells with a pile-up of protein. 2015-06-03T00:00:00+0000Tsien was a Chinese-American biochemist who shared the 2008 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery and development of genetically programmable fluorescent tags. These multicoloured fluorescent proteins, developed in Tsien's laboratory between 1994 and 1998, provide a means to observe in real-time different phenomena in living cells and organisms, including gene expression, protein-protein interactions, cell division, chromosome replication and organisation, intracellular pathways, organelle inheritance and biogenesis.2016-08-26T00:00:00+0000Skou was a Danish biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1997 for discovering an ion-transporting enzyme called sodium-potassium-activated adenosine triphosphatase (Na+-K+ ATPase), which is found in the plasma membrane of animal cells. The enzyme is important to the transport of molecules through a cell's membrane. Skou made the discovery in the late 1950s. A number of other similar ATPase-based enzymes were discovered later, including one that helps control muscle contraction.2018-05-28T00:00:00+0000Boyer was an American biochemist and analytical chemist renowned for helping to understand the enzymatic mechanism involved in the production of the energy-storage molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which fuels the metabolic processes of all living things. This he did in the 1970s whle based at UCLA where he was the founding director of the university's Molecular Biology Institute. In 1997 Boyer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on ATP synthesis.2018-06-02T00:00:00+0000Fischer was a biochemist. He is best known for helping to discover and describe reversible protein phosphorylation, a biological and chemical reaction that regulates the activities of cell proteins. This he did with Edwin Krebs at the University of Washington. Their work helped illustrate how life exists at the cellular level. They were both awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1992.2021-08-27T00:00:00+0000
Date Event People Places
26 Dec 1825Felix Hoppe-Seyler was born in GermanyHoppe-SeylerUniversity of Tubingen
28 Mar 1837Willhelm Kuhne was born in Hamburg, GermanyKuhneUniversity of Heidelberg
9 Oct 1852Hermann Emil Fischer was born in Euskirchen, Prussia (now Germany)FischerUniversity of Berlin
3 Nov 1854Jokichi Takamine was born in Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture, JapanTakamineTakaoka, Toyama Prefecture, Japan
20 May 1860Eduard Buchner was born in Munich, GermanyBuchnerUniversity of Wurzburg
20 Jun 1861Frederick Gowland Hopkins was born in Eastbourne, UKHopkinsCambridge University
12 Oct 1865Arthur Harden was born in Manchester, UKHardenLondon University
14 May 1872Mikhail Tsvet was born in Asti, ItalyTsvetUniversity of Warsaw, Warsaw Technical University
15 Feb 1873Hans von Euler-Chelpin was born in Augsburg, GermanyEuler-ChelpinStockholm University
25 Dec 1876Adolf O R Windaus was born in Berlin, GermanyWindausUniversity of Innsbruck, University of Gottingen
6 Aug 1881Alexander Fleming was bornFlemingLondon University
30 Aug 1884Theodor H E Svedberg was born in Flerang, SwedenSvedbergUppsala University
8 Mar 1886Edward Calvin Kendall was born in South Norwalk CT, USAKendallMayo Clinic
4 Apr 1887William C Rose was born Greenville, South Carolina, USARoseUniversity of Illinois
19 Nov 1887James B Sumner was born in Canton MA, USASumnerCornell University
14 Jan 1890Rolla N Harger was born Kansas, USAHagerIndiana University School of Medicine
5 Jul 1891John H Northrop born in Yonkers NY, USANorthropRockefeller Institute
14 Nov 1891Frederick Grant Banting was born in Alliston, CanadaGrantUniversity of Toronto
5 Dec 1892Carl R Moore was born in Missouri, USAMooreUniversity of Chicago
17 Dec 1892Edwin J Cohn was born in New York CityCohnHarvard University
16 Sep 1893Albert Szent-Gyorgyi von Nagyrapolt was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary)Szent-Gyorgyi Szeged University, National Institutes of Health
13 Nov 1893Edward A Doisy was born in Hume, Illinois, USADoisySt Louis University
10 Aug 1895Felix Hoppe-Seyler diedHoppe-SeylerUniversity of Tubingen
28 Feb 1896Philip Showalter Hench was born in Pittsburgh PA, USAHenchMayo Clinic
15 Aug 1896Gerty Theresa Cori was born in Prague, Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic)G CoriWashington University in St Louis
5 Dec 1896Carl F Cori was born in Prague, Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic)Carl CoriWashington University in St Louis
19 Jun 1897Cyril N Hinshelwood was born in London, UKHinshelwoodOxford University, Imperial College London
20 Jul 1897Tadeus Reichstein was born in Wloclawek, PolandReichsteinBasel University
10 Jun 1900Wilhelm F Kuhne died KuhneUniversity of Heidelberg
3 Dec 1900Richard Kuhn was born in Vienna, Austria-HungaryKuhnUniversity of Heidelberg
18 May 1901Vincent du Vigneaud was born in Chicago IL, USAdu VigneaudCornell University
10 Aug 1902Arne W K Tiselius born in Stockholm, SwedenTiseliusUppsala University
6 Jul 1903Axel Hugo T Theorell was born in Linkoping, SwedenTheorellKarolinska Institutet
22 Jul 1904Lu Gwei-djen was born in Nanjing, Qing ChinaGwei-djen University of Cambridge
16 Aug 1904Wendell M Stanley was born in Ridgeville IN, USAStanleyRockefeller Institute
1 Sep 1906Karl A Folkers was born in Decatur, Illinois, USAFolkersMerck & Co
6 Sep 1906Luis F Leloir was born in Paris, FranceLeloirInstitute for Biochemical Research
22 Apr 1909Rita Levi-Montalcini was born in Turin, ItalyLevi-MontalciniWashington University
12 May 1910Dorothy M Crowfoot Hodgkin was born in Cairo, EgyptD HodgkinCairo, Egypt
8 Jul 1910Hermann Lehmann was born in Halle, Saxony, GermanyLehmannSt Bartholomew's Hospital, Cambridge University
6 Apr 1911Feodor Lynen was born in Munich, GermanyLynenMax-Planck-Institute for Cellular Chemistry
8 Apr 1911Melvin Calvin was born in St. Paul MN, USACalvinUniversity of California Berkeley
25 Jun 1911William H Stein was born in New York NY, USASteinRockefeller University
21 Jan 1912Konrad Bloch was born in Neisse (now Nysa), Germany (now Poland)BlochHarvard University
4 Sep 1913Stanford Moore was born in Chicago IL, USAMooreRockefeller University
19 May 1914Max F Perutz was born in Vienna, AustriaPerutzLaboratory of Molecular Biology
28 Oct 1914Richard L M Synge was born in Liverpool, United KingdomSyngeRowett Research Institute
10 Jan 1916Sune K Bergstrom was born in Stockholm, SwedenBergstromKarolinska Institute
24 Mar 1917John C Kendrew was born in Oxford, United KingdomKendrewLaboratory of Molecular Biology
13 Aug 1917Eduard Buchner diedBuchnerUniversity of Wurzburg
31 Jul 1918Paul D Boyer was born in Provo, UT, USAPaul BoyerUniversity of California Los Angeles
25 Aug 1918Hans Adolf Krebs was born in Hildesheim, GermanyKrebsUniversity of Freiburg, Cambridge University, Sheffield University, Oxford University
8 Oct 1918Jens C Skou was born in Lemvig, DenmarkSkouAarhus University
16 Jan 1919Jerome P Horwitz was born in Detroit, Michigan, USAHorwitzKarmanos Institute
26 Jun 1919Mikhail S Tsvet diedTsvetUniversity of Warsaw, Warsaw Technical University
15 Jul 1919Hermann Emil Fischer diedFischerUniversity of Berlin
13 Aug 1919Reinhold Benesch was born in PolandBeneschColumbia Univesity
6 Apr 1920Edmond H Fischer was born in Shanghai, ChinaFischerUniversity of Washington
29 Sep 1920Peter D Mitchell born in Mitcham, Surrey, United KingdomPeter MitchellUniversity of Edinburgh, Glynn Research Institute
16 Apr 1921Marie M Daly was born in Corona, Queens, NY, USAMary DalyRockefeller Institute, Columbia University
15 Jul 1921Robert Bruce Merrifield born in Fort Worth, Texas, USAMerrifieldRockefeller Institute
22 Jul 1922Jokichi Takamine diedTakamine 
17 Nov 1922Stanley Cohen was born in Brooklyn, NY, USACohenVanderbilt University
25 Feb 1925Ruth Erica (Leroi) Benesch was born in Paris, FranceBeneschColumbia Univesity
16 Jul 1926Irwin Rose was born in Brooklyn NY, USARoseUniversity of California Irvine
30 Nov 1926Andrew V Schally was born in Wilno (now Vilnius), Poland (now Lithuania)SchallyVeterans Administration Hospital
21 Mar 1932Walter Gilbert was born in Boston MA, USAGilbertHarvard University, Biogen
21 May 1934Bengt I Samuelsson was born in Halmstad, SwedenSamuelsonKarolinska Institute
16 Mar 1935John J R Macleod diedMacleodUniversity of Aberdeen
31 Dec 1937Avram Hershko was born in Karcag, HungaryHershkoTechnion–Israel Institute of Technology
14 Jun 1938Patent awarded on chlorophyll as a therapeutic agent to treat bacterial infectionsGruskinTemple University
4 Oct 1938Kurt Wuthrich was born Aarberg, SwitzerlandWuthrichSwiss Federal Institute of Technology
22 Jun 1939Ada E Yonath was born in Jerusalem, Palestine (now Israel)YonathWeizmann Institute
18 Apr 1940Joseph L Goldstein was born in Sumter, South Carolina, USAGoldsteinUniversity of Texas
17 Jun 1940Arthur Harden diedHardenLondon University
23 Aug 1940Thomas A Steitz was born in Milwaukee, WI, USASteitzYale University
7 Jan 1941John E Walker was born in Halifax, UKWalkerLaboratory of Molecular Biology
13 Apr 1941Michael S Brown was born in New York, USABrownUniversity of Texas
21 Feb 1944Frederick Grant Banting diedBantingUniversity of Toronto
16 May 1947Frederick Gowland Hopkins diedHopkinsCambridge University
18 Jul 1948Hartmut Michel was born in Ludwigsburg, West GermanyMichel 
3 Nov 1950James E Rothman was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, USARothmanStanford University, Princeton University, Columbia University
1 Feb 1952Roger Y Tsien was born in New York, USATsienUniversity of California San Diego
1 Oct 1953Edwin J Cohn diedCohnHarvard University
11 Mar 1955Alexander Fleming diedFlemingLondon University
12 Aug 1955James B Sumner diedSumnerCornell University
16 Oct 1955Carl R Moore diedC MooreUniversity of Chicago
19 Feb 1956Roderick MacKinnon was born in Burlington MA, USAMackinnonRockefeller University
26 Oct 1957Gerty Theresa Cori diedG CoriWashington University in St Louis
9 Jun 1959Adolf O R Windaus died WindrausUniversity of Innsbruck, University of Gottingen
6 Nov 1964Hans von Euler-Chelpin diedEuler-ChelpinStockholm University
30 Mar 1965Philip Showalter Hench diedHenchMayo Clinic
19 Jun 1965James B Collip diedCollipUniversity of Toronto, McGill University
1 Aug 1967Richard Kuhn diedKuhnUniversity of Heidelberg
9 Oct 1967Cyril N Hinshelwood diedHinshelwoodOxford University, Imperial College London
15 Jun 1971Wendell M Stanley diedStanleyRockefeller Institute
29 Oct 1971Arne W K Tiselius diedTiseliusUppsala University
11 Dec 1978Vincent du Vigneaud dieddu VigneaudCornell University
6 Aug 1979Feodor Lynen diedLynenMax-Planck-Institute for Cellular Chemistry
2 Feb 1980William H Stein diedSteinRockefeller University
22 Nov 1981Hans Adolf Krebs diedKrebsUniversity of Freiburg, Cambridge University, Sheffield University, Oxford University
15 Aug 1982Axel H T Theorell diedTheorellKarolinska Institutet,
23 Aug 1982Stanford Moore diedMooreRockefeller University
20 Nov 1982James B Collip was born in Belleville, Ontario, CanadaCollipUniversity of Toronto, McGill University
8 Aug 1983Rolla N Harger diedHargerIndiana University School of Medicine
1984First cationic (positively charged) lipid synthesised, opening up new possibilities to deliver drugs and gene therapyFelgnerSyntex Research
13 Jul 1985Hermann Lehmann diedLehmannSt Bartholomew's Hospital, Cambridge University
25 Sep 1985William Cumming Rose diedRoseUniversity of Illinois
22 Oct 1986Albert Szent-Gyorgyi von Nagyrapolt diedSzent-Gyorgyi Szeged University, National Institutes of Health
23 Oct 1986Edward A Doisy diedDoisySt Louis University
30 Dec 1986Reinhold Benesch diedBeneschColumbia Univesity
27 May 1987John H Northrop diedNorthropRockefeller Institute
2 Dec 1987Luis F Leloir diedLeloirInstitute for Biochemical Research
28 Nov 1991Lu Gwei-djen diedGwei-djenUniversity of Cambridge
10 Apr 1992Peter D Mitchell diedPeter MitchellUniversity of Edinburgh, Glynn Research Institute
29 Jul 1994Dorothy M Crowfoot Hodgkin diedD HodgkinOxford University
18 Aug 1994Richard L M Synge diedSyngeRowett Research Institute
1 Aug 1996Tadeus Reichstein diedReichsteinBasel University
8 Jan 1997Melvin Calvin diedCalvinUniversity of California Berkeley
23 Aug 1997John C Kendrew diedKendrewLaboratory of Molecular Biology
7 Dec 1997Karl A Folkers diedFolkersMerck & Co
25 Mar 2000Ruth Erica (Leroi) Benesch diedBeneschColumbia Univesity
15 Oct 2000Konrad Bloch diedBlochHarvard University
30 Nov 2001Ada Yonath and colleagues published the complete high-resolution of structures of both ribosomal subunits and discovered a region important to the process of polypeptide polymerisationYonathWeizmann Institute
6 Feb 2002Max F Perutz diedPerutzLaboratory of Molecular Biology
28 Oct 2003Marie M Daly diedMary DalyRockefeller Institute, Columbia University
15 Aug 2004Sune K Bergstrom diedBergstromKarolinska Institute
14 May 2006Robert Bruce Merrifield diedMerrifieldRockefeller Institute
6 Sep 2012Jerome P Horwitz diedHorwitzKarmanos Institute
30 Dec 2012Rita Levi-Montalcini diedLevi-MontalciniInstitute of Cell Biology of the CNR
3 Jun 2015Irwin Rose diedRoseUniversity of California Irvine
26 Aug 2016Roger Y Tsien diedTsienUniversity of California San Diego
28 May 2018Jens C Skou diedSkouAarhus University
2 Jun 2018Paul D Boyer diedPaul BoyerUniversity of California Los Angeles
27 Aug 2021Edmond H Fischer diedFischerUniversity of Washington

26 Dec 1825

Felix Hoppe-Seyler was born in Germany

28 Mar 1837

Willhelm Kuhne was born in Hamburg, Germany

9 Oct 1852

Hermann Emil Fischer was born in Euskirchen, Prussia (now Germany)

3 Nov 1854

Jokichi Takamine was born in Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

20 May 1860

Eduard Buchner was born in Munich, Germany

20 Jun 1861

Frederick Gowland Hopkins was born in Eastbourne, UK

12 Oct 1865

Arthur Harden was born in Manchester, UK

14 May 1872

Mikhail Tsvet was born in Asti, Italy

15 Feb 1873

Hans von Euler-Chelpin was born in Augsburg, Germany

25 Dec 1876

Adolf O R Windaus was born in Berlin, Germany

6 Aug 1881

Alexander Fleming was born

30 Aug 1884

Theodor H E Svedberg was born in Flerang, Sweden

8 Mar 1886

Edward Calvin Kendall was born in South Norwalk CT, USA

4 Apr 1887

William C Rose was born Greenville, South Carolina, USA

19 Nov 1887

James B Sumner was born in Canton MA, USA

14 Jan 1890

Rolla N Harger was born Kansas, USA

14 Jan 1890

John H Northrop born in Yonkers NY, USA

14 Nov 1891

Frederick Grant Banting was born in Alliston, Canada

5 Dec 1892

Carl R Moore was born in Missouri, USA

17 Dec 1892

Edwin J Cohn was born in New York City

16 Sep 1893

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi von Nagyrapolt was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary)

13 Nov 1893

Edward A Doisy was born in Hume, Illinois, USA

10 Aug 1895

Felix Hoppe-Seyler died

28 Feb 1896

Philip Showalter Hench was born in Pittsburgh PA, USA

15 Aug 1896

Gerty Theresa Cori was born in Prague, Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic)

5 Dec 1896

Carl F Cori was born in Prague, Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic)

19 Jun 1897

Cyril N Hinshelwood was born in London, UK

20 Jul 1897

Tadeus Reichstein was born in Wloclawek, Poland

10 Jun 1900

Wilhelm F Kuhne died

3 Dec 1900

Richard Kuhn was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary

18 May 1901

Vincent du Vigneaud was born in Chicago IL, USA

10 Aug 1902

Arne W K Tiselius born in Stockholm, Sweden

10 Aug 1902

Axel Hugo T Theorell was born in Linkoping, Sweden

22 Jul 1904

Lu Gwei-djen was born in Nanjing, Qing China

16 Aug 1904

Wendell M Stanley was born in Ridgeville IN, USA

1 Sep 1906

Karl A Folkers was born in Decatur, Illinois, USA

6 Sep 1906

Luis F Leloir was born in Paris, France

22 Apr 1909

Rita Levi-Montalcini was born in Turin, Italy

12 May 1910

Dorothy M Crowfoot Hodgkin was born in Cairo, Egypt

8 Jul 1910

Hermann Lehmann was born in Halle, Saxony, Germany

6 Apr 1911

Feodor Lynen was born in Munich, Germany

6 Apr 1911

Melvin Calvin was born in St. Paul MN, USA

25 Jun 1911

William H Stein was born in New York NY, USA

21 Jan 1912

Konrad Bloch was born in Neisse (now Nysa), Germany (now Poland)

4 Sep 1913

Stanford Moore was born in Chicago IL, USA

19 May 1914

Max F Perutz was born in Vienna, Austria

28 Oct 1914

Richard L M Synge was born in Liverpool, United Kingdom

10 Jan 1916

Sune K Bergstrom was born in Stockholm, Sweden

24 Mar 1917

John C Kendrew was born in Oxford, United Kingdom

13 Aug 1917

Eduard Buchner died

31 Jul 1918

Paul D Boyer was born in Provo, UT, USA

25 Aug 1918

Hans Adolf Krebs was born in Hildesheim, Germany

8 Oct 1918

Jens C Skou was born in Lemvig, Denmark

16 Jan 1919

Jerome P Horwitz was born in Detroit, Michigan, USA

26 Jun 1919

Mikhail S Tsvet died

15 Jul 1919

Hermann Emil Fischer died

13 Aug 1919

Reinhold Benesch was born in Poland

6 Apr 1920

Edmond H Fischer was born in Shanghai, China

29 Sep 1920

Peter D Mitchell born in Mitcham, Surrey, United Kingdom

16 Apr 1921

Marie M Daly was born in Corona, Queens, NY, USA

15 Jul 1921

Robert Bruce Merrifield born in Fort Worth, Texas, USA

22 Jul 1922

Jokichi Takamine died

17 Nov 1922

Stanley Cohen was born in Brooklyn, NY, USA

25 Feb 1925

Ruth Erica (Leroi) Benesch was born in Paris, France

16 Jul 1926

Irwin Rose was born in Brooklyn NY, USA

30 Nov 1926

Andrew V Schally was born in Wilno (now Vilnius), Poland (now Lithuania)

21 Mar 1932

Walter Gilbert was born in Boston MA, USA

21 May 1934

Bengt I Samuelsson was born in Halmstad, Sweden

16 Mar 1935

John J R Macleod died

31 Dec 1937

Avram Hershko was born in Karcag, Hungary

14 Jun 1938

Patent awarded on chlorophyll as a therapeutic agent to treat bacterial infections

4 Oct 1938

Kurt Wuthrich was born Aarberg, Switzerland

22 Jun 1939

Ada E Yonath was born in Jerusalem, Palestine (now Israel)

18 Apr 1940

Joseph L Goldstein was born in Sumter, South Carolina, USA

17 Jun 1940

Arthur Harden died

23 Aug 1940

Thomas A Steitz was born in Milwaukee, WI, USA

7 Jan 1941

John E Walker was born in Halifax, UK

13 Apr 1941

Michael S Brown was born in New York, USA

21 Feb 1944

Frederick Grant Banting died

16 May 1947

Frederick Gowland Hopkins died

18 Jul 1948

Hartmut Michel was born in Ludwigsburg, West Germany

3 Nov 1950

James E Rothman was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, USA

1 Feb 1952

Roger Y Tsien was born in New York, USA

1 Oct 1953

Edwin J Cohn died

11 Mar 1955

Alexander Fleming died

12 Aug 1955

James B Sumner died

16 Oct 1955

Carl R Moore died

19 Feb 1956

Roderick MacKinnon was born in Burlington MA, USA

26 Oct 1957

Gerty Theresa Cori died

26 Oct 1957

Adolf O R Windaus died

6 Nov 1964

Hans von Euler-Chelpin died

30 Mar 1965

Philip Showalter Hench died

19 Jun 1965

James B Collip died

1 Aug 1967

Richard Kuhn died

1 Aug 1967

Cyril N Hinshelwood died

15 Jun 1971

Wendell M Stanley died

29 Oct 1971

Arne W K Tiselius died

11 Dec 1978

Vincent du Vigneaud died

6 Aug 1979

Feodor Lynen died

2 Feb 1980

William H Stein died

22 Nov 1981

Hans Adolf Krebs died

15 Aug 1982

Axel H T Theorell died

23 Aug 1982

Stanford Moore died

20 Nov 1982

James B Collip was born in Belleville, Ontario, Canada

8 Aug 1983

Rolla N Harger died

1984

First cationic (positively charged) lipid synthesised, opening up new possibilities to deliver drugs and gene therapy

13 Jul 1985

Hermann Lehmann died

25 Sep 1985

William Cumming Rose died

22 Oct 1986

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi von Nagyrapolt died

23 Oct 1986

Edward A Doisy died

30 Dec 1986

Reinhold Benesch died

30 Dec 1986

John H Northrop died

2 Dec 1987

Luis F Leloir died

28 Nov 1991

Lu Gwei-djen died

10 Apr 1992

Peter D Mitchell died

29 Jul 1994

Dorothy M Crowfoot Hodgkin died

18 Aug 1994

Richard L M Synge died

1 Aug 1996

Tadeus Reichstein died

8 Jan 1997

Melvin Calvin died

23 Aug 1997

John C Kendrew died

7 Dec 1997

Karl A Folkers died

25 Mar 2000

Ruth Erica (Leroi) Benesch died

15 Oct 2000

Konrad Bloch died

30 Nov 2001

Ada Yonath and colleagues published the complete high-resolution of structures of both ribosomal subunits and discovered a region important to the process of polypeptide polymerisation

6 Feb 2002

Max F Perutz died

28 Oct 2003

Marie M Daly died

15 Aug 2004

Sune K Bergstrom died

14 May 2006

Robert Bruce Merrifield died

6 Sep 2012

Jerome P Horwitz died

30 Dec 2012

Rita Levi-Montalcini died

3 Jun 2015

Irwin Rose died

26 Aug 2016

Roger Y Tsien died

28 May 2018

Jens C Skou died

2 Jun 2018

Paul D Boyer died

27 Aug 2021

Edmond H Fischer died

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