Williams, Robert (Runnels), Jr (1886-1965)

US chemist and inventor. The son of US Baptist missionaries, he was born in Nellore, India, and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1907. As a researcher in the Bureau of Science in Manila, the Philippines (1909-14), he sought a cure for beriberi. Returning to the USA, he worked as chemical director for the Bell Telephone Co. for many years, doing vitamin research in his spare time. He isolated thiamine in 1933 and synthesized vitamin B1 two years later. He channelled the profits from his vitamin patents to the Williams-Waterman Fund for the Combat of Dietary Disease.