Karrer, Paul

Karrer, Paul 

Born Apr. 21, 1889, in Moscow. Swiss organic chemist and biochemist. Graduated from the University of Zürich in 1911. From 1912 to 1918 he conducted pharmaco-chemical research in Frankfurt am Main with P. Ehrlich on complex metal salts and produced the silver-arsphenamine complex. He has been a professor at the University of Zürich since 1918 and director of the Institute of Chemistry in Zürich since 1919.

Karrer established the structure and conducted the synthesis of a number of biologically active natural compounds (carbohydrates, alkaloids, lecithins, anthocyanides, many carotenoids, and vitamins A, B₂, E, K, and B₁ and their coenzymatic forms). He and the English scientist W. Haworth shared a Nobel Prize in 1937.

WORKS

Einführung in die Chemie der polymeren Kohlenhydrate. Leipzig, 1925.
Lehrbuch der organischen Chemie, 13th ed. Stuttgart, 1959.
Carotinoide. Basel, 1948. (With E. Jucker.)
In Russian translation:
Kurs organicheskoi khimii. Leningrad, 1960.