John Cornforth
| Sir John Cornforth | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | John Warcup Cornforth, Jr. 7 September 1917 Sydney, Australia |
| Died | 8 December 2013 (aged 96) Sussex, England, United Kingdom |
| Residence | Brighton, United Kingdom |
| Citizenship |
Australian, British |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Fields | Organic chemistry |
| Institutions | |
| Alma mater | |
| Thesis | Synthesis of analogues of steroid hormones (1941) |
| Doctoral advisor | Robert Robinson |
| Known for | Stereochemistry of enzyme-catalysed reactions |
| Notable awards |
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| Spouse | Rita Harradence |
Sir John Warcup "Kappa" 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.
Born in Sydney, New South Wales, Cornforth was the son and the second of four children of English-born, Oxford-educated schoolmaster and teacher John Warcup Cornforth and Hilda Eipper (1887–1969), a granddaughter of pioneering missionary and Presbyterian minister Christopher Eipper. Before her marriage, Eipper had been a maternity nurse.
Cornforth was raised in Sydney as well as Armidale, in the north of New South Wales, where he undertook primary school education.
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