Photo credit: Unknown author — File:John Howard Northrop.jpg (Wikimedia Commons) · Public domain
John Howard Northrop
1891–1987 · United States · Born in the 1800s
Nobel Chemistry 1946
American biochemist at the Rockefeller Institute whose crystallization of enzymes established that they are pure proteins, founding modern enzymology.
Nobel Prize work
Crystallized the enzymes pepsin, trypsin and chymotrypsin in pure form, proving rigorously that enzymes are proteins with defined chemical structure. He also crystallized a bacterial virus (bacteriophage), showing that viruses behave like chemical substances.
Fields
Related topics
Protein structure and function
A protein is a sequence that folds into a shape; its surface and flexibility help determine what it can bind or catalyse.
Enzymes and enzyme kinetics
Enzymes accelerate reactions by lowering the activation free-energy barrier; they do not change the equilibrium constant.