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Wendell Stanley
1904–1971 · United States · 20th century
Nobel Chemistry 1946
American biochemist whose crystallization of a virus showed that infectious agents could be handled as pure chemicals.
Nobel Prize work
Isolated tobacco mosaic virus in crystalline form in 1935, proving that a virus is a protein (with nucleic acid) that behaves like a chemical substance. His crystallization of enzymes and virus proteins dissolved the boundary between living and non-living matter and founded the chemistry of viruses.
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.