Luis F. Leloir

Luis F. Leloir (1906-1987), Argentine biochemist and Nobel laureate. Leloir received the 1970 Nobel Prize in chemistry for discovering the chemical processes involved in the formation of sugars in plants and animals. Born in Paris to Argentine parents, Leloir lived and worked in Buenos Aires most of his life. He received a medical degree in 1932 from the University of Buenos Aires and worked briefly in England and the United States. He returned to Argentina in 1945 to direct the new Biochemical Research Institute.

Despite equipment and laboratory conditions in the 1940s and early 1950s that were considered somewhat primitive by international standards, Leloir successfully conducted experiments that revealed the chemical pathways in sugar synthesis in yeast. This proved to be important because similar pathways were then shown to exist in a variety of other biochemical processes, such as the formation of cell walls in bacteria, the formation of complex sugars and chitin (the substance that forms the exoskeleton of invertebrates), and even the synthesis of glycoprotein (a complex of carbohydrates and proteins) in mammals.

Leloir's genius was in his ability to use basic scientific principles and carefully designed experiments, without the help of complex and costly equipment, to discover new information about chemical processes in living systems. Leloir's work on carbohydrate metabolism led the way to many discoveries on how cells acquire energy.