Tadeusz Reichstein

Tadeusz Reichstein (20 July 1897 – 1 August 1996), also known as Tadeus Reichstein, was a Polish-Swiss chemist and a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate, which was awarded for his work on the isolation of cortisone.

Early life

Reichstein was born into a wealthy Polish-Jewish family with strong Polish patriotic traditions at Włocławek, Russian Empire (in the Russian Partition of Poland). His parents were Gastawa (Brockmann) and Izydor Reichstein. He was named after the 18th-century Polish national hero Tadeusz Kościuszko.

Career Reichstein studied under Hermann Staudinger during the latter's brief stint at the Technical University of Karlsruhe. It was here that he met Leopold Ruzicka, also a doctoral student. In 1937, he was appointed Associate Professor at ETHZ. In 1951, he and Kendall were jointly awarded the Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh.

In later years, Reichstein became interested in the phytochemistry and cytology of ferns, publishing at least 80 papers on these subjects in the last three decades of his life. He had a particular interest in the use of chromosome number and behavior in the interpretation of histories of hybridization and polyploidy, but also continued his earlier interest in the chemical constituents of the plants.

Retirement and death Reichstein died at the age of 99 in Basel, Switzerland. The principal industrial process for the artificial synthesis of vitamin C still bears his name. Reichstein was the longest-lived Nobel laureate at the time of his death, but was surpassed in 2008 by Rita Levi-Montalcini.