Alfred Gottschalk

Distinguished over the past 35 years for his outstanding contributions to the biochemistry of carbohydrate metabolism in the higher plants and animals and in microorganisms (1914-52). His recent studies (1952-54) of the action of viral enzymes on muco­proteins have greatly clarified knowledge of the carbohydrate moiety of the glyco-proteins. Gottschalk isolated a nitrogen-containing substance set free from muco-proteins by the action of enzymes situated at the surface of the influenza virus and showed it to be 2, carboxy-pyrrole, an amino acid hitherto unknown in biological products. He has since shown that 2, carboxy-pyrrole is present in a great number of muco­proteins and absent from proteins which have no carbohydrate prosthetic groups; and has demonstrated that this amino acid forms the bridge between the carbohydrate and the peptid chain in the muco-proteins. These studies have far-reaching fundamental significance in the realms of both protein chemistry and virology.

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