Bloch, Konrad E.

Bloch, Konrad E. (Emil) (1912–  ) biochemist; born in Neisse, Germany. When Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Bloch, a Jew, moved to Switzerland and pursued his work with phospholipids in tubercle bacilli. He then came to Columbia University for graduate studies (1936), and joined Columbia's faculty (1938–46). He relocated to the University of Chicago (1946–54), then became Harvard's first professor of biochemistry (1954–82). He shared the 1964 Nobel Prize for physiology for discovering the 36-step biosynthesis of cholesterol and determining both its role in animal cells and its implication in arteriosclerosis. His later research investigated the enzymes involved in fatty acid metabolism.