Cori, Carl Ferdinand

Cori, Carl Ferdinand, 1896–1984, and Gerty Theresa Cori (kōr`ē, kôr`ē), 1896–1957, American biochemists, b. Prague. Soon after receiving their medical degrees and marrying, they emigrated to the United States (1922), where they pursued their joint researches into the biochemical pathway by which glycogen, the storage form of sugar in liver and muscle, is broken down into glucose. As part of this work, they also elucidated the molecular defects underlying a number of genetically determined glycogen storage diseases. For these discoveries the Coris received the 1947 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.