Otto Meyerhof
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Otto Fritz Meyerhof
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1922
Born: 12 April 1884, Hanover, Germany
Died: 6 October 1951, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Affiliation at the time of the award: Kiel University, Kiel, Germany
Prize motivation: “for his discovery of the fixed relationship between the consumption of oxygen and the metabolism of lactic acid in the muscle”
Otto Meyerhof received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1923.
Prize share: 1/2
Work
In order to work, our muscles need energy, which is released by chemical processes. Conversions between carbohydrates and lactic acid play an important role here. At the end of the 1910s Otto Meyerhof mapped these conversions by measuring heat trends and oxygen consumption in frog muscles. When the muscle is working, lactic acid is formed from carbohydrates, and Meyerhof showed that during recovery, this is followed partly by the burning of lactic acid and partly by reprocessing of lactic acid to carbohydrates.
Nobel Prizes and laureates
Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.
See them all presented here.
