Famous German Biochemists

Born to an ENT surgeon in Germany, Hans Adolf Krebs followed in his father’s footsteps and studied medicine. After fleeing Nazi Germany, he went to England, where he joined the University of Cambridge as a researcher. The Nobel Prize-winning scientist is remembered for his groundbreaking discovery of cellular respiration.

German biochemist and pharmacist Johanna Budwig is best remembered for her anti-cancer diet known as the Budwig diet. Her extensive research on fatty acids helped her create the diet that consists of flaxseed oil, cottage cheese, and low-fat milk. However, there’s no scientific evidence that proves the effectiveness of the diet.

Nobel Prize-winning German pathologist and bacteriologist Gerhard Domagk is best remembered for his pathbreaking discovery of Prontosil, the first sulfonamide antibiotic. The Nazis, however, didn’t allow him to accept the Nobel Prize immediately and detained him briefly instead. He had also served as a soldier in World War I.

German-American neuroscientist Thomas C. Südhof was a gifted musician in his early days, having mastered instruments such as the bassoon. He later won a Nobel Prize for his research on the chemical signaling in neurons, which helped later scientists understand neurological conditions such as autism and schizophrenia.

Richard Kuhn was an Austrian-German biochemist whose work on vitamins and carotenoids earned him the prestigious Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1938. Over the course of his illustrious career, Richard Kuhn also won several other prestigious awards, such as the Wilhelm Exner Medal in 1952 and the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art in 1961.

Albrecht Kossel was a German biochemist whose work in ascertaining nucleic acids' chemical composition earned him the prestigious Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1910. Kossel is also remembered for conducting prominent research into protein's composition. His work influenced several other important researchers like Henry Drysdale Dakin, Edwin B. Hart, Friedrich Miescher, and Felix Hoppe-Seyler.

Born to a chemist father in Berlin, Ernst Boris Chain moved to the U.K. amid the rise of the Nazis. The Nobel Prize-winning biochemist later worked at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford. He is best remembered for isolating and purifying penicillin, along with Howard Walter Florey.

German-American biochemist Fritz Albert Lipmann is best known for identifying Coenzyme A in 1946 and also for giving it its name. Lipmann and others later determined its structure. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1953, which he shared with Hans Adolf Krebs, for his discovery of Co-enzyme A and its significance for intermediary metabolism.

Otto Fritz Meyerhof was a German physician and biochemist. He studied medicine in Strasbourg and Heidelberg and later became a professor at the University of Kiel. He jointly won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine with Archibald Vivian Hill in 1922. He became one of the directors of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research in 1929. 

German American biochemist Konrad Emil Bloch, who served as Higgins Professor of Biochemistry at Harvard University for nearly three decades, is best-remembered for his collaboration with German biochemist Feodor Lynen leading to discoveries relating to mechanism and regulation of the cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism. This led them to jointly win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1964.

Heinrich Otto Wieland was a German chemist known for his research into bile acids, for which he won the 1927 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He studied under prominent chemist and professor Johannes Thiele at the University of Munich. He had a brilliant academic career and worked actively to protect Jewish students after the passage of the Nuremberg Laws.

German-American biochemist Heinz Ludwig Fraenkel-Conrat, who remained part of the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, for over four decades, is best-remembered for his research on the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) and the holmes ribgrass virus (HRV). He worked with Robley Williams and demonstrated that it is possible to create a functional virus from purified RNA and a protein coat.

Rudolf Schoenheimer was a German-American biochemist known for developing the technique of isotope labeling. He studied at the Friedrich Wilhelm University and went on to become Head of Physiological Chemistry at the University of Freiburg. He suffered from manic depression all his life and died by suicide in 1941, at the prime of his career.