born June 20, 1861, Eastbourne, East Sussex, Eng.
died May 16, 1947, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
British biochemist.
He discovered the amino acid tryptophan (1901) and showed that it and certain others are essential in the diet and cannot be made in the body from other substances. For his discovery of vitamin s, he shared a 1929 Nobel Prize with Christiaan Eijkman . He demonstrated that working muscles accumulate lactic acid and isolated the tripeptide (see peptide ) glutathione (1922) and showed that it is vital to utilization of oxygen by cells. He was knighted in 1925.