Heinrich Otto Wieland

Heinrich Otto Wieland (1877–1957) was a German chemist whose investigations of bile acids earned him the 1927 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He also studied alkaloids and other natural products.

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Adolf von Baeyer: A German chemist who made foundational contributions to organic chemistry and received the 1905 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Wieland completed his doctorate under Baeyer at the University of Munich.
Bile acid: A steroid acid produced from cholesterol in the liver and secreted into bile, where it aids digestion of fats. Bile acids were the compounds at the center of Wieland’s Nobel-recognized investigations.
Structural elucidation: The process of determining the arrangement of atoms in a molecule from experimental evidence. Wieland used chemical reactions and comparisons to establish structures of bile acids.
1927 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Heinrich Wieland for his investigations of bile acids. The award recognized the research that defined Wieland’s international scientific reputation.
Richard Willstätter: A German organic chemist who investigated plant pigments and enzymes and received the 1915 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Willstätter and Wieland were leading Munich chemists whose research focused on natural products.
Cholic acid: A primary bile acid in humans and other mammals, synthesized in the liver from cholesterol. Wieland’s structural studies included cholic acid, a major bile constituent.
Organic chemistry: The study of carbon-containing compounds, their structures, properties, reactions, and synthesis. His investigations applied organic chemistry to complex compounds isolated from organisms.
University of Munich: A public research university in Munich, Germany, founded in 1472. Wieland held a chemistry professorship there and led a major research group.
Hans Fischer: A German chemist known for determining the structures of hemin and chlorophyll; he received the 1930 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Fischer succeeded Wieland as professor of chemistry at the University of Munich.
Deoxycholic acid: A secondary bile acid formed when intestinal bacteria remove a hydroxyl group from cholic acid. Its relationship to cholic acid helped clarify structural transformations among bile acids.