Casimir Funk - Life, Contribution to science

Biochemist, born in Warsaw, Poland. He studied in Berlin and Bern, and became head of the biochemical department at the Cancer Hospital Research Institute, London (1913–15). He emigrated to the USA in 1915, and later headed a research institute in Warsaw (1923–7) and Paris (1928–39). He was best known for his work on vitamins, which he identified and named vitamines in 1912.

Kazimierz Funk (February 23, 1884 - January 19, 1967), commonly anglicized as Casimir Funk, was a Polish biochemist, generally credited with the first formulation of the concept of Vitamins in 1912, which he called vital amines or vitamines.

Life

Born in 1884 in Warsaw, the son of a prominent dermatologist, he studied in Berlin and Switzerland, where he gained his doctorate in organic chemistry at the university of Bern in 1904.

After the outbreak of World War II he finally moved permanently to America in 1939.

Contribution to science

After reading an article by the Dutchman Christiaan Eijkman that indicated people eating brown rice were less vulnerable to beri-beri than those who ate only the fully milled product, he tried to isolate the substance responsible and he succeeded around 1912. Because that substance contained an amine group, he called it vitamine (vitamin). It was later to be known as vitamin B1 (Thiamine). The "e" at the end of vitamine was later removed when it was realised that vitamins need not be nitrogen containing amines.

He later postulated the existence of other essential nutrients, which became known as B1, B2, C, and D.

Funk also conducted research into hormones, diabetes, ulcers, and the biochemistry of cancer.