Wieland, Heinrich Otto

Wieland, Heinrich Otto

(born June 4, 1877, Pforzheim, Ger.—died Aug. 5, 1957, W.Ger.) German chemist. He won a 1927 Nobel Prize for research on bile acids which showed that the three acids then isolated had similar structures and were also structurally related to cholesterol. He also found that different forms of nitrogen in organic compounds can be detected and distinguished from each other, an important contribution to structural organic chemistry. Wieland's theory that oxidation in living tissues occurs through removal of hydrogen atoms, not addition of oxygen (see oxidation-reduction), was of great importance to physiology, biochemistry, and medicine.