Sir John Cornforth CBE FRS AC FAA
(1917-2013)
Companion of the Order of Australia, Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, Nobel Chemistry Laureate (from 1975), and Knight Bachelor (from 1977)
Died aged c. 96
Wikidata WikipediaSir John Warcup Cornforth Jr., AC, CBE, FRS, FAA (7 September 1917 – 8 December 2013) was an Australian–British chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1975 for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalysed reactions, becoming the only Nobel laureate born in New South Wales. Cornforth investigated enzymes that catalyse changes in organic compounds, the substrates, by taking the place of hydrogen atoms in a substrate's chains and rings. In his syntheses and descriptions of the structure of various terpenes, olefins, and steroids, Cornforth determined specifically which cluster of hydrogen atoms in a substrate were replaced by an enzyme to effect a given change in the substrate, allowing him to detail the biosynthesis of cholesterol. For this work, he won a share of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1975, alongside co-recipient Vladimir Prelog, and was knighted in 1977.
DbPedia
Commemorated on 1 plaque
Sir John Cornforth (1917-2013) Shell Research Ltd Millstead Laboratory of Chemical Enzymology. In recognition of the pioneering work carried out here when he was co-director of the laboratory. Cornforth led a team that revealed the detailed chemistry of how enzymes work, and explained how cholesterol builds up in the body. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1975.
Shell UK’s Milstead Laboratory of Chemical Enzymology, Sittingbourne, United Kingdom where they worked (1975)