Butenandt, Adolf Friedrich Johann (1903–1995)

German biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1939 for his work on sex hormones. He isolated the first sex hormones (oestrone, androsterone, and progesterone), and determined their structure. He shared the Nobel prize with Swiss chemist Leopold Ružička, who synthesized androsterone.

Butenandt was born in Lehe, near Bremerhaven, and studied biology and chemistry in Marburg and Göttingen. He started to work on sex hormones while in Göttingen, and continued his research as professor of chemistry at the Danzig Institute in 1933. In 1936 he became head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Biochemistry in Berlin-Dahlem, and transferred his attentions to the study of gene action, mainly that controlling eye colour in insects.

Having determined that eye pigmentation was caused by a substance, kynurenine, formed under genetic control, Butenandt concluded in 1940 that ‘genes act by providing an enzyme system that oxidizes tryptophane to kynurene.2’. This is essentially the ‘one gene – one enzyme’ rule usually ascribed to George Beadle. Butenandt succeeded in isolating the moulting hormone in insects – the first time an insect hormone had been isolated. He then began working on the sex attractant of the female silk moth, and thus isolated the first pheromone.

In 1960 Butenandt became president of the Max Planck Institute, and in 1972, when his presidency ended, he was elected honorary president. He remained active with the Institute for many years.