Frederick Gowland Hopkins

Frederick Gowland Hopkins (June 20, 1861, Eastbourne - May 16, 1947, Cambridge) was a British biochemist. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1929 for the discovery of factors essential nutrients, along with Christiaan Eijkman.

Biography

Hopkins excelled in school as a 10-year-old where he received a science award. When he left school at the age of 17 he published an article on the bombardier beetle in The Entomologist newspaper.

He initially studied chemistry at London University and later, at the age of 32, medicine at Guy's Hospital. He was professor of clinical physiology at the University of Cambridge and from 1914 professor of biochemistry, where from 1921 to 1943 he held the chair of sir William Dunn.

Member since 1905 of the Royal Society, who was president of the same from 1930 to 1935 and from 1933, of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

When World War I began and food was scarce, his studies focused on rationing food and choosing those with the highest nutritional value.

His main research contribution lies in the knowledge of elemental substances, those that the body needs to acquire from the diet and that their lack causes disease. He discovered that some foods were directly related to growth. He verified that the consumption of milk was able to resume the arrested growth of a living being in formation.

Among his discoveries are, in 1892, new methods to quantitatively assess uric acid in urine, in 1901 methods of analysis of tryptophan (crystallized amino acid) and, in 1921, methods to isolate glutathione, an important amino acid compound in cellular autoxidation.

Awards and Recognitions

1918. Royal Medal of the Royal Society.

1925. Knighthood, granted by King George V.

1926. Copley Medal of the Royal Society.

1929. Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, shared with Christian Eijkman.

1933. President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

1935. Order of Merit, Britain's most exclusive civil honour.