AKA Richard Johann Kuhn

Born: 3-Dec-1900
Birthplace: Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died: 1-Aug-1967
Location of death: Heidelberg, Germany
Cause of death: unspecified

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Chemist

Nationality: Germany
Executive summary: Carotenoids, and vitamins B2 and B6

Military service: Austro-Hungarian Army, 1917-18

Austrian-born German biochemist Richard Kuhn studied under Richard Willstätter, and determined the chemical structure of plant pigments and vitamins. He synthesized vitamin B2 (riboflavin) in 1935 and vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) in 1938. discovered at least eight carotenoids (red and yellow biological pigments). He discovered the deadly nerve toxin Soman in 1944, and also studied enzymes, the influenza virus, and the acidity of hydrocarbons. He won the 1938 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, but because Adolf Hitler forbade Germans from accepting Nobels, Kuhn could not accept his honor until after World War II. He was a high school classmate of another Nobel laureate, Wolfgang Pauli. During the Nazi regime Kuhn denounced Jewish colleagues and cooperated with their expulsion from scientific work under German law.

Father: Richard Clemens Kuhn (engineer)
Mother: Angelika Rodler (schoolteacher)
Wife: Daisy Hartmann (m. 1928, two sons, four daughters)

    High School: Döblinger Gymnasium, Vienna, Austria (1917)
    University: University of Vienna (attended, 1918)
    University: PhD, University of Munich (1922)
    Teacher: General Chemistry, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich (1926-29)
    Professor: Chemistry, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Heidelberg (1929-67)
    Professor: Biochemistry, University of Heidelberg (1929-67)
    Administrator: Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Heidelberg (1937-67)

    Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1938
    Goethe Prize 1943
    German Chemical Society
    Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science
    Justus Liebigs Annalen der Chemie Editor (1948-67)
    Austrian Ancestry
    German Ancestry

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