Sumner, James Batcheller (1887-1955), an American biochemist, crystallized the first enzyme. He extracted the enzyme urease from the jack bean, and converted the crude material into pure crystals. His success stimulated John Howard Northrop to crystallize other important enzymes, and Wendell Meredith Stanley to crystallize the first virus. The three men shared the 1946 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Sumner was born in Canton, Massachusetts.
