John Cornforth

Who is this?

Sir John Warcup Cornforth Jr., (7 September 1917 – 8 December 2013) was an Australian–British chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1975 for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalysed reactions, becoming the only Nobel laureate born in New South Wales. Cornforth investigated enzymes that catalyse changes in organic compounds, the substrates, by taking the place of hydrogen atoms in a substrate's chains and rings. In his syntheses and descriptions of the structure of various terpenes, olefins, and steroids, Cornforth determined specifically which cluster of hydrogen atoms in a substrate were replaced by an enzyme to effect a given change in the substrate, allowing him to detail the biosynthesis of cholesterol. For this work, he won a share of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1975, alongside co-recipient Vladimir Prelog, and was knighted in 1977.

Career

1. 1917
   Born
2. 1953
   Member of Royal Society
3. 1953
   Won Fellow of the Royal Society
4. 1953
   Won Corday-Morgan Prize
5. 1976
   Won Royal Medal
6. 1978
   Member of National Academy of Sciences
7. 1982
   Won Copley Medal
8. 2013
   Passed away
9. Member of Australian Academy of Science
10. Won Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Trivia

• •Place of birth: Sydney
• •Citizenship: Australia
• •Known as: chemist, university teacher
• •Spouse: Rita Harradence