Hans Adolf Krebs

Hans Adolf Krebs (Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, German Empire, August 25, 1900 - Oxford, England, United Kingdom, November 22, 1981) was a British biochemist of Jewish-German origin., winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1953.

He studied Medicine, Biology and Chemistry at the University of Göttingen. Freiburg im Breisgau, Munich and Berlin; in the latter he worked with Otto Heinrich Warburg, Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1931. He obtained the chair of Internal Medicine at the University of Freiburg. In 1931, he emigrated to England, a country from which he obtained nationalization. He teaching activity at the universities of Sheffield and Cambridge. Whitley Professor of Biochemistry (Oxford University) and Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford.

His main research work revolves around the analysis of cell metabolism, mainly in the transformation of nutrients into energy. He discovered that all known reactions within cells were interrelated, naming this sequence of reactions citric acid cycle (1937), later known as Krebs cycle . These studies earned him the Nobel Prize.

The citric acid cycle is the set of energetic reactions that take place in the tissues of mammals, translated by the repeated formation and decomposition of citric acid with the elimination of carbon dioxide.

Other investigations carried out by Krebs include fundamental aspects of urogenesis (1932), and the discovery of the importance of tricarboxylic acids (citric acid, isocitric acid, aconitic acid, etc.), in aerobic respiration.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1953, shared with Fritz Lipmann, co-discoverer of coenzyme A.