Heinrich Wieland.

Heinrich Otto Wieland was born on 4 July 1877 in Pforzheim, Germany. He studied chemistry at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, Germany, where he received his doctorate in 1901 and was appointed “außerordentlicher Professor” in 1909. At that time, he was already interested in oxidation processes in living cells, one of the foundation stones of the field of biochemistry. He worked at Technical University of Munich (TUM) and LMU until 1921, with a two-year stint at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin-Dahlem. He then accepted a call to the University of Freiburg, but returned to LMU in 1925 to succeed Richard Willstätter as Chair of Chemistry. He retired in 1952 and died in Munich on 5 August 1957.

Heinrich Wieland received numerous awards, among them the 1927 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his pioneering investigations of bile acids and related substances. Heinrich Wieland was a cousin of Albert Boehringer, the founder of the Boehringer Ingelheim company. As early as 1903, Heinrich Wieland worked with the company and, in 1917, his advice led to the company establishing its first scientific department dedicated to innovative research. His scientific findings made it possible, for example, to produce drugs for cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.