Frederick Gowland Hopkins

Frederick Gowland Hopkins

Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins (born June 20, 1861 in Eastbourne , Sussex , † May 16, 1947 in Cambridge ) was a British chemist, physician, biochemist and Nobel Prize winner .

Hopkins is considered to be the founder of vitamin research. He discovered vitamins A and B in milk. He discovered glutathione and tryptophan in the amino acids .

life and work

After working as an insurance clerk and completing a chemist's apprenticeship from 1882, Hopkins studied chemistry at the Royal School of Mines in London and graduated from the University of London in 1887, while he was an assistant at Guy's Hospital from 1883 , where he worked with Sir Thomas Stevenson, a UK Home Office forensic chemist and toxicologist. This was followed in 1888 by studying medicine at the Medical School of Guy's Hospital with a Bachelor of Medicine (MB) in 1894 at the University of London. He taught at Guy's Hospital and from 1898 as a lecturer in chemical physiology (now known as biochemistry ) at Cambridge University . In 1902 he received his doctorate there (D. Sc.), In 1910 associate professor and in 1914 full professor of biochemistry.

At first he dealt with pigments from butterflies (pterins) and in 1891 he developed an improved method for determining uric acid. From 1897 he began to study the role of proteins in nutrition and realized that a certain amino acid composition was necessary, especially with regard to tryptophan and tyrosine . In contrast, arginine and histidine were interchangeable. In 1906 he was the first scientist to clearly state that every animal needs other substances to thrive in addition to pure proteins, fats and carbohydrates, even when supplemented with necessary inorganic salts. In his results, published in 1912, he showed that certain food components (vitamins) are absolutely necessary in the diet, a finding that was generally accepted through his work.

From 1907 he studied the metabolism of muscles with Walter Morley Fletcher and showed the connection between muscle strain, lactic acid production and oxygen supply. In 1921 he recognized the importance of glutathione as a redox system in the body's metabolism.

In 1905 he was elected as a member (" Fellow ") in the Royal Society , which in 1918 awarded him the Royal Medal and in 1926 the Copley Medal . In 1924 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences , 1927 to the Royal Society of Edinburgh and in 1928 to a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . In 1929 he and Christiaan Eijkman received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of vitamins that promote growth . In 1932 he was elected a member and honorary member of the Leopoldina . In 1937 he was accepted into the American Philosophical Society .

Hopkins was a member of the Freemasons Association ( Aesculapius Lodge No. 2410 ).

In 2000 the asteroid (9677) Gowlandhopkins was named after him. The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee named the Antarctic Hopkins Glacier on July 7, 1959, and Hopkins Cove in 2016 .

His daughter was the archaeologist and author Jacquetta Hawkes .

Fonts

• Food Economy in Wartime. 1915
• The Earlier History of Vitamin Research. 1930
• Chemistry and Life. 1933

literature

• Winfried Pötsch u. a .: Lexicon of important chemists . Harri Deutsch 1989
• Werner E. Gerabek : Hopkins, Sir Frederick Gowland. In: Werner E. Gerabek, Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 616.

Web links

Commons : Frederick Gowland Hopkins  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Information from the Nobel Foundation on the 1929 award ceremony for Frederick Gowland Hopkins

Individual evidence

1. ^ Werner E. Gerabek: Hopkins, Sir Frederick Gowland. 2005, p. 616.
2. ^ Otto Westphal , Theodor Wieland , Heinrich Huebschmann: life regulator. Of hormones, vitamins, ferments and other active ingredients. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1941 (= Frankfurter Bücher. Research and Life. Volume 1), p. 43.
3. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 118.
4. ^ Member History: Sir Frederick G. Hopkins. American Philosophical Society, accessed October 3, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Frederick Gowland Hopkins: List of Famous Freemasons . navesinklodge9.org. Archived from the original on September 29, 2013. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 24, 2013. 
6. ↑ Minor Planet Circ. 41569
7. ^ John Stewart: Antarctica - An Encyclopedia . Vol. 1, McFarland & Co., Jefferson and London 2011, ISBN 978-0-7864-3590-6 , p. 753 (English).