Todd, Sir Alexander Robertus

views updated

Sir Alexander Robertus Todd, 1907–97, Scottish biochemist, Ph.D., Univ. of Frankfurt am Main, 1931; Oxford, 1933. Todd held posts at Edinburgh Univ. (1934–36), the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, Chelsea (1936–37), the Univ. of London (1937–38), and the Univ. of Manchester (1938–44). He then taught at Cambridge, where he was a professor from 1944 to 1971. In 1957 Todd was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on nucleotides and nucleotide coenzymes. He is credited with establishing the chemical makeup of these compounds, which form the structural units of DNA and RNA (see nucleic acid).

About this article

Todd, Sir Alexander Robertus

Updated About encyclopedia.com content Print Article