Hopkins, Sir Frederick Gowland

Hopkins, Sir Frederick Gowland, 1861–1947, English biochemist, educated at Cambridge and the Univ. of London. He was professor of biochemistry at Cambridge (1914–43). Among his contributions were important studies in carbohydrate metabolism and muscular activity, including the discovery of the relationship of lactic-acid formation to muscular contraction. Through his feeding experiments with laboratory animals he concluded that "accessory food factors" (later named vitamins) are essential to health. For this work he shared with Christian Eijkman the 1929 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He was knighted in 1925. His works include Newer Aspects of the Nutrition Problem (1922), The Problems of Specificity in Biochemical Catalysis (1931), and Chemistry and Life (1933).

Bibliography

See J. G. Crowther, British Scientists of the Twentieth Century (1952).

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Hopkins, Sir Frederick Gowland

(born June 20, 1861, Eastbourne, East Sussex, Eng.—died May 16, 1947, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire) British biochemist. He discovered the amino acid tryptophan (1901) and showed that it and certain others are essential in the diet and cannot be made in the body from other substances. For his discovery of vitamins, he shared a 1929 Nobel Prize with Christiaan Eijkman. He demonstrated that working muscles accumulate lactic acid and isolated the tripeptide (see peptide) glutathione (1922) and showed that it is vital to utilization of oxygen by cells. He was knighted in 1925.