Awards & Winners

John Cornforth

Date of Birth 07-September-1917
Place of Birth Sydney
(Australia, New South Wales, Oceania)
Nationality Australia, United Kingdom
Also know as Sir John Warcup "Kappa" Cornforth, John Warcup Cornforth
Profession Chemist
Sir John Warcup "Kappa" Cornforth, Jr., AC, CBE, FRS, FAA, was an Australian–British chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1975 for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalysed reactions. 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.

Awards by John Cornforth

Check all the awards nominated and won by John Cornforth.

1982


Copley Medal
(In recognition of his distinguished research on the stereochemically-controlled synthesis and biosynthesis of biologically important molecules.)

1975


Nobel Prize in Chemistry
(for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions)