Butenandt, Adolf Friedrich Johann

Butenandt, Adolf Friedrich Johann

20th Century
Born: Bremerhaven (Germany), 1903 
Died: München (Germany), 1995
In 1931, shortly after he had isolated the hormone estrone independently of Edward Albert Doisy, Butenandt became lecturer in Göttingen. Later in 1933 he became professor in Danzig (Gdansk) and in 1936 director of the Max-Planck-Institute (KWI) for biochemistry in Berlin (later in Tübingen and München). At first his research concentrated on steroid hormones but after 1941 the active substances of insects and cancer were his main fields of interest. In 1939 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry (together with Leopold Ruzicka).

  The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1939
"for his work on sex hormones" "for his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes"