Fischer, Hermann Otto Laurenz (1888–1960)

German organic chemist. He carried out research into the synthetic and structural chemistry of carbohydrates, glycerides, and inositols.

Between 1920 and 1932 Fischer worked out the exact structure of quinic acid and investigated the difficult chemistry of the trioses glyceraldehyde and dihydroxyacetone and the related two-, three-, and four-carbon compounds. Fischer also worked on glyceraldehydes, extending it from 1937 to glycerides (esters of glycerol, i.e. propan-1,2,3-triol) and demonstrated the action of lipase enzymes on these biologically important substances.

Fischer was born in Würzburg, Bavaria, the son of chemist Emil Fischer, and studied in the UK at Cambridge and in Germany at Berlin and Jena. In 1912, he returned to the Chemical Institute of Berlin University where he continued research with his father, until the start of World War I two years later. With the rise of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, the Fischers left Berlin in 1932 and went to Basel, Switzerland. In 1937 Hermann moved to the Banting Institute in Toronto, Canada, where he stayed until moving, in 1948, to the University of California at Berkeley.