John Cornforth, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

John Cornforth

Australian-British chemist

Date of Birth: 07-Sep-1917

Place of Birth: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Date of Death: 08-Dec-2013

Profession: chemist, university teacher

Nationality: Australia

Zodiac Sign: Virgo

Sir John Warcup Cornforth Jr., AC, CBE, FRS, FAA (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.