Windaus, Adolf Otto Reinhold (1876-1959)

German chemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1928 for his research on the structure of cholesterol, its relationship to vitamin D, and his discovery that steroids are precursors of vitamins. He also linked the roles of sunlight and vitamin D in the prevention of rickets.

Windaus discovered that the precursor (provitamin) of vitamin D is a steroid, ergosterol, a fat-soluble impurity of cholesterol. In the 1920s, he demonstrated that ergosterol converts to vitamin D in the presence of sunlight, providing an explanation for why both cod-liver oil (which contains vitamin D) and sunlight help to prevent rickets.

Windaus was born on 26 December in Berlin. He began reading medicine at the Universities of Berlin and Freiburg in 1895. However, under the guidance of Emil Fischer he gave up medicine in favour of chemistry and, in 1899, completed a doctoral thesis on the cardiac poisons of digitalis. He was appointed professor at Freiburg University, then moved to become professor of medical chemistry at the University of Innsbruck, and finally settled at the University of Göttingen. His study concentrated on the relationship between cholesterol and vitamin D. In the 1930s Windaus continued his study of natural products, such as vitamin B and colchicine, and retired in 1944.