Richard Willstätter

Richard Martin Willstätter (August 13rd 1872 - August 31st 1942) was a German chemist which studied the structure of the Chlorophylle and other pigments of the plants. This work was worth to him to receive the Nobel Prize of chemistry in 1915. He was also prize winner of the Faraday Lectureship of the Royal society off chemistry in 1927 and of the Davy Médaille in 1932. He invented the Chromatographie on paper independently of Mikhail Tsvet.

Willstatter supported its doctorate with the Université of Munich in 1894, on the structure of the Cocaïne. He became then assistant of Adolf von Baeyer with Munich, continued his research on the structure of the Alcaloïde S and synthesized several of them.

In 1905, he became professor with the Université of Zurich and started to study chlorophyl. It found its structure and showed that the structure of the blood pigment " heme" resembled made up of Porphyrine present in chlorophyl. He then became chemistry teacher with the Université of Berlin and director of the Institut Kaiser Wilhelm (1912 - 1916). Its research revealed the structure of many pigments of the flowers and the fruits. When its work was stopped by the First World War, it turned to the development of a gas mask.

In 1916, Willstatter succeeded Baeyer in Munich. During the Years 1920, it studied the mechanisms of the enzymatic reactions and tried to show ques the enzymes are biological chemical substances and not organizations. Being Jewish, he resigned from his station in Munich in 1924 to protest against the pressures anti-semites. He continued his research on a purely private basis, initially in Munich pouis in Suisse after 1939.

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