Fritz Albert LipmannBorn 12 Jun 1899; died 24 Jul 1986 at age 87.German-American biochemist who shared (with Sir Hans Krebs) the 1953 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of coenzyme A, an important catalytic substance involved in the cellular conversion of food into energy. Coenzyme A is a compound with a rather small molecule, which, when united with the enzyme-protein, acquires the property of binding acetic acid. Acetic acid is normally quite unreactive but when bound in this way it becomes labile and reactive and represents the previously mystical 2-carbon compound which combines with a 4-carbon compound to form citric acid. A new way for the transmission of energy in the cell was demonstrated by this discovery. |
