John Cornforth
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
John Warcup Cornforth
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1975
Born: 7 September 1917, Sydney, Australia
Died: 8 December 2013
Affiliation at the time of the award: University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom
Prize motivation: “for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions”
Prize share: 1/2
Work
Enzymes are substances that are active in biochemical processes but that are not incorporated into the final product. John Cornforth investigated the structure and transformation of various molecules in such processes, including how an enzyme replaces a certain hydrogen atom in a reacting molecule and what consequences this has. To study this, from the mid-1950s he made use of various isotopes of hydrogen—hydrogen atoms with different weights that also react at different speeds. On the basis of his results, he was able to produce several substances of biological importance.
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.
