Casimir Funk

Casimir Funk Kazimierz Funk actually, ( born February 23, 1884 in Warsaw, Russian Empire, † November 19, 1967 in Albany, New York State, USA ) was a Polish- American biochemist, in 1912 in the mistaken belief that since the end of 19th century ( Takaki ) researched dietary ingredients contained all amino groups, for them the term "vitamin " ("vital amine " ) coined, who considered himself notwithstanding any subsequent findings.

He studied in Berlin and in Switzerland. In 1904 he received his doctoral degree at the University of Bern. His work he first started at the Institute Pasteur in Paris. Later he worked in Berlin and London. Through knowledge gained from fundamental studies on vitamin deficiency diseases such as beriberi, among other things, he led in 1912 the name " vitamins" one. In 1915 he emigrated to the USA where he was naturalized in 1920. In 1922, radio was elected a member of the Leopoldina. In 1923 he returned to Poland, where he worked as a director at the National Institute of Hygiene. In 1927 he left Poland again towards Paris. In 1936, he was able to decipher the structure of vitamin B1 and developed a method to synthesize its. With the outbreak of the Second World War he moved now finally in the United States. He died in 1967 from cancer.

He succeeded as the first to isolate the nicotinic acid (one of the B vitamins ).