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Eduard Buchner
1860–1917 · Germany · Born in the 1800s
Nobel Chemistry 1907
German chemist who proved that fermentation is driven by enzymes rather than living cells, opening the era of modern biochemistry.
Nobel Prize work
In 1897 Buchner showed that a cell-free extract of yeast — containing no living cells — could still ferment sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, attributing the effect to an enzyme he called zymase. This refuted the vitalist claim that fermentation required intact living cells and founded modern enzymology.