Prelog, Vladimir (1906–1998)

Bosnian-born Swiss organic chemist who studied alkaloids and antibiotics. The comprehensive molecular topology that evolved from his work on stereochemistry is gradually replacing classical stereochemistry. He shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1975 for his work on the stereochemistry of organic molecules and their reactions.

Prelog was born in Sarajevo and studied in Czechoslovakia at the Institute of Technology in Prague. In 1935 he went back to Yugoslavia to lecture at Zagreb, but in 1941, after the German occupation at the beginning of World War II, Prelog moved to the Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich, where he became professor in 1957.

Alkaloids were the subject of Prelog's early research, and he derived the structures of quinine, strychnine, and steroid alkaloids from plants of the genera Solanum and Veratrum. His studies of lipoid extracts from animal organs also resulted in the discovery of various steroids and the elucidation of their structures. He investigated metabolic products of micro-organisms and with a number of other researchers isolated various new complex natural products that have interesting biological properties. These include antibiotics and bacterial growth factors.