Roger John Williams

Roger John Williams 1893-1988, American chemist, b. India, grad. Univ. of Redlands, Redlands, Calif. (B.S., 1914), Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1919; brother of the chemist Robert R. Williams , Jr. He taught chemistry at the Univ. of Oregon (1920-32) and at Oregon State College (now Oregon State Univ., 1932-39) and became professor at the Univ. of Texas in 1939 and also director of the Biochemical Institute of Texas in 1941. He is noted for his work on the vitamin B complex and especially for his discovery of pantothenic acid. He is the author of several textbooks on organic chemistry and biochemistry and is a pioneer in biochemical investigations of alcoholism. In 1970 he announced that ordinary commercial white bread was so nutritionally deficient that, in an experiment he conducted, a number of laboratory rats given a steady diet of it died of malnutrition after three months.

Williams, Roger John (1893–1988) American biochemist and nutritionist; discovered and isolated pantothenic acid, also named folic acid and avidin