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John Cornforth

File:John_Cornforth_1975.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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John Cornforth

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Also known as John Warcup Cornforth, Kappa Cornfoth, Sir John Cornforth, Sir John Warcup Cornforth, John Conforth

Australian-British chemist

OverviewAI-generated

John Cornforth was an Australian chemist and university teacher specializing in organic chemistry. Born in Sydney in 1917, he was educated at the University of Sydney and St Catherine's College, University of Oxford. He served as a student of Robert Robinson and later worked at the University of Warwick and the University of Sussex.

Cornforth received several awards, including the Copley Medal, the Corday-Morgan Prize, and the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Australian Academy of Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

He was married to Rita Harradence and resided in Brighton, where he died in 2013. Cornforth was deaf and spoke English. His name in his native language is John Warcup 'Kappa' Cornforth.

Synthesized by Vinony from 29 facts across 3 sources: Wikidata, Nobel Prize, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Nobel Prize

  • The Nobel Prize in Chemistry1975

    “for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions”

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Wikidata facts

Instance of
human
Given name
John
Gender
male
Citizenship
Australia
Place of birth
Sydney
Place of death
Brighton
Spouse
Rita Harradence
Occupation
university teacher
Educated at
University of Oxford
Employer
University of Sussex
Languages spoken
English language
Award
Knight Bachelor
Doctoral advisor
Robert Robinson
Student of
Robert Robinson
Field of work
organic chemistry
Image
John Cornforth 1975.jpg
Residence
Brighton
Show 8 more facts
date of death
2013-12-08
member of
Academia Europaea
date of birth
1917-09-07
medical condition
deafness
nominated for
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Commons category
John Cornforth
name in native language
John Warcup 'Kappa' Cornforth
interested in
organic chemistry
Sources (11)

via Wikidata · CC0

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Encyclopedic overview

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.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “John Cornforth” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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