AKA Friderik Pregl

Born: 3-Sep-1869
Birthplace: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Died: 13-Dec-1930
Location of death: Graz, Austria
Cause of death: Pneumonia

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Chemist, Inventor, Doctor

Nationality: Austria
Executive summary: Microanalysis of organic compounds

Austrian physiologist and medical chemist Fritz Pregl was trained as a physician and embarked on a career in medical research, but grew frustrated in his early attempts to conduct research into bile acids. The scientific equipment of his time required specimens weighing up to one gram, and he was only able to obtain very small quantities of the materials he was studying. He spent several years redesigning and rebuilding his lab equipment to allow quantitative analysis of much smaller material samples, and rethinking research procedures to obtain more comprehensive results with smaller and smaller specimens. With introduction of his new mechanism and methodology in about 1912, Pregl provided precise analysis of carbon, halogen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, and other elements using as little as one milligram of material.

Pregl was honored with the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1923, and for years afterward he welcomed the world's leading chemists at his laboratory at the University of Graz, explaining his new techniques and spurring far more efficient research. He was born in Laibach, Austria-Hungary (now Ljubljana, Slovenia), and never married. His name has been largely forgotten, but his technique still forms the underlying basis of biochemistry and organic chemistry.

Father: Raimund Pregl (bank executive, d. 1875)
Mother: Friderike Schlacker Pregl

    High School: Ljubljana Gymnasium, Ljubljana, Slovenia
    Medical School: MD, University of Graz (1893)
    Lecturer: Physiology and Histology, University of Graz (1893-99)
    Teacher: Physiological Chemistry, University of Graz (1899-1903)
    Professor: Physiological Chemistry, University of Graz (1903-13)
    Professor: Physiological Chemistry, Innsbruck University (1910-13)
    Professor: Physiological Chemistry, University of Graz (1913-30)
    Administrator: Director, Medico-Chemical Institute, University of Graz (1913-30)
    Administrator: Dean of the Medical Faculty, University of Graz (1916-17)

    Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 1914
    Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1923
    Austrian Academy of Science 1921
    Austrian Ancestry Maternal
    German Ancestry
    Slovenian Ancestry Paternal

Author of books:
Die Quantitative Organische Mikroanalyse (Quantitative Organic Microanalysis) (1917, non-fiction)

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