Adolf Windaus | Biography

Adolf Windaus devoted his professional life to the investigation of the chemistry of natural products. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1928 for his work on sterols, which led to his clarifying the chemical structure of cholesterol, and he is also noted for his discoveries of the structure of vitamin D, some of the B vitamins, and histamine. The impact of his work made it possible for many other scientists to study the structures of other natural products; for example, his work on cholesterol helped to establish the study of sex hormones. Windaus's research on digitalis was used in the treatment of heart disease, and his studies of vitamin D led to the development of irradiation, a process of exposing foods, such as milk and bread, to ultraviolet light in order to prevent nutritional deficiencies that could lead to disease.

Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus came from a family of artisans and craftspeople on his mother's side and from weavers and clothing manufacturers on his father's side. He was born in Berlin to Adolf and Margarete (Elster) Windaus on December 25, 1876. In his youth, he attended the French Gymnasium in Berlin, where literature, not science, was the primary area of study. Young Windaus decided to become a physician after reading about the work of French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur and German physician and microbiologist Robert Koch. His mother, who was a widow at the time of his decision, was disappointed, since she had hoped he would continue the long tradition of the family business.

Windaus's career in science began at the University of Berlin in 1895. The chemistry lectures given by Emil Fischer there were to be major influences which would shape his future. The physiological applications of Fischer's approach became the foundation of Windaus's investigations. After receiving a bachelor's degree in 1897 from the University of Berlin and abandoning any ideas of pursuing a career in medicine, he continued his studies at the University of Freiburg, where he was influenced by Heinrich Kiliani . Under Kiliani's direction he researched digitalis, which later was found to be a powerful stimulant to the heart and became widely used in the treatment of heart failure. Windaus wrote his dissertation on the chemistry of this substance and received his doctorate in 1899 from Freiburg.

After a year in military service, Windaus returned to Freiburg to work with Kiliani, turning now to the study of cholesterol. A seroid alcohol present in animal cells and body fluids, cholesterol regulates membrane fluidity and is involved in the process of metabolism. Because it was so widely found in animal cells, Windaus speculated that it must be closely connected with other important compounds. By 1906, he was appointed assistant professor at Freiburg. In 1913, Windaus moved to the University of Innsbruck in Austria to become a professor of applied medical chemistry. Two years later, he was at the University of Göttingen, where he was appointed director of the Laboratory for General Chemistry, succeeding chemist Otto Wallach. He remained at Göttingen for twenty-nine years, retiring in 1944.

While Windaus pursued his studies of natural products, a number of other chemists were working in related areas. During his investigation of cholesterol (the best known sterol) and associated substances, Heinrich Wieland, a colleague in Munich, was researching the structure of bile acids. By 1919, Windaus was able to show an affinity between sterines, a group of sterols he had established earlier, and bile acids. After this, the work between Wieland and Windaus in both of their laboratories proceeded in close collaboration and led to the clarification of the chemical structure of the sterol ring in 1932.

It was known that rickets could be cured with cod liver oil, which contained vitamin D. Some scientists, such as physiologist Alfred Hess in New York, felt that cholesterol was somehow involved with vitamin activity, which led him to ask Windaus to collaborate in efforts to find the chemical nature of vitamin D. Windaus's cooperation with scientists in New York and London resulted in the findings of other D vitamins and made Göttingen a center for vitamin research.

The results of the research taking place during the 1920s and 1930s on vitamins made it possible for Windaus to identify and characterize many other compounds formed in the process of the photochemical reactions under study. In 1927, Wieland was given the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his study of bile acids, and Windaus received the same award in 1928 for his discovery of the structure of sterols and their connection with vitamins. Windaus was granted numerous honorary degrees and other awards as well, including the Louis Pasteur Medal of the French Academy of Sciences in 1938 and the Goethe Medal of the Goethe Institute in 1941.

During his early work on cholesterol, Windaus also had collaborated with biochemist Franz Knoop. They studied the reaction of sugar with ammonia, hoping that they could convert sugar into amino acids, and possibly do the same for carbohydrates into proteins. This work led to the discovery of histamine , a compound that is significant in allergies and inflammation. Consequently, Windaus became involved with pharmaceutical companies that began to suggest problems for him to solve, and supplied him with much of the materials he needed for his work.

Windaus's work on a B vitamin, thiamine , helped to establish its correct structure and synthesis, while other work involved clarifying the structure of colchicine , a substance used in cancer therapy. Although Windaus abandoned the idea of becoming a physician early in his academic career, his contributions to organic chemistry paved the way for new medical treatments of disease.

Windaus's studies on cholesterol opened new research areas for many other investigators and led to an important branch of organic chemistry and biochemistry. He was considered a valuable collaborator because of the close work he did with chemists in Germany and other countries on natural products. He was generous with his students, giving them both freedom to pursue their research interests and full credit for contributions they made. His influence on other research was considerable. For instance, one of his students, Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt, presented the structure of sex hormones shortly after Windaus presented the structure of the sterol ring.

Windaus married Elisabeth Resau in 1915 and they had two sons, Gunter and Gustav, and a daughter, Margarete. While he was not sympathetic to the Nazi government during World War II, his reputation made it possible for him to continue his work without interference. After his retirement in 1944, he did not publish any further research, but a journal on which he had served editorially, the Justus Liebigs Annalen der Chemie, dedicated several volumes to him in 1957 in celebration of his eightieth birthday. He died at the age of eighty-two on June 9, 1959, at Göttingen.