Photo credit: ETH Zürich — File:Richard Kuhn ETH-Bib Dia 248-065.jpg (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY-SA 3.0
Richard Kuhn
1900–1967 · Austria, Germany · 20th century
Nobel Chemistry 1938
Austrian-German chemist who revealed the chemistry of carotenoid pigments and vitamins, and later headed the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research.
Nobel Prize work
Kuhn isolated and structurally characterised the carotenoid pigments, establishing the polyene chromophore responsible for their colour, and determined the structure of riboflavin (vitamin B2), which he synthesised and linked to the yellow respiratory enzyme. The prize was awarded in 1938 but the Nazi government forced him to decline it; he received the medal and diploma after the war.
Fields
Related topics
Alkaloids, terpenoids, flavonoids
Three large families of natural products arise from different biosynthetic building blocks and show wide structural variety and biological activity.
Antibiotics and bioactive compounds
Antibiotics and other bioactive compounds work by selectively interfering with microbial or cellular processes, and their use drives the evolution of resistance.