Otto Heinrich Warburg

Otto Heinrich Warburg (1883-1970), German biochemist, physiologist, and Nobel laureate, who conducted outstanding research on the oxidation process in living cells, particularly in cancer cells. Warburg was born in Freiburg and educated at the universities of Berlin and Heidelberg. He became director of the Max Planck Institute for Cell Physiology in Berlin in 1931.

Warburg investigated the nature and action of enzymes involved in respiration and fermentation. In 1923 he successfully devised a method for measuring the amount of oxygen absorbed by a living, respiring tissue, which proved to be of great importance in later research into the processes of metabolism in cancerous tissue. He was awarded the 1931 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.