Artturi Ilmari Virtanen was a Finnish biochemist who discovered many of the nutritionally important components of plants, including vitamins and amino acids. His most important discovery, a method of preserving green fodder and silage, led to an improved understanding of the mechanism of plant decay . For his biochemical investigations in agriculture and nutrition he received the 1945 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Virtanen was born January 15, 1895, in Helsinki, Finland, to Serafina (Isotalo) and Kaarlo Virtanen. He began his education at the Classical Lyceum in Viipuri (now Vyborg, Russia). Upon graduation, he entered the University of Helsinki to study biology, chemistry, and physics. Virtanen received his master of science degree in 1916 and worked briefly as an assistant chemist in the Central Industrial Laboratory of Helsinki. That same year he returned to the University to continue his studies and in 1919 he received his doctorate. Interested in a broad range of scientific subjects...