Meyerhof, Otto Fritz (1884-1951), a German-born biochemist, shared the 1922 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine with the English physiologist Sir Archibald Hill. Meyerhof was awarded the Nobel Prize for his research into the consumption of oxygen by muscles, and the relationship of oxygen use to the conversion of lactic acid (a chemical produced in the body by muscular activity) and carbohydrates within the muscle. Hill was honored for his discovery relating to the production of heat in the muscle. Meyerhof also studied the effects of different chemicals on oxidation processes (chemical reactions in which a substance loses electrons).
Meyerhof was born in Hanover, Germany. In 1909, he received his M.D. degree from the University of Heidelberg. In 1912, he moved to Kiel where, from 1918 he held the position of assistant professor at the local university. In 1924, he moved to Berlin to work for the Kaiser Wilhelm (now the Max Planck) Society. In 1929, he took charge of the newly founded Kaiser Wilhelm (now the Max Planck) Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg. In 1938, he decided to leave Germany and went to Paris for two years, where he worked at the Institut de Biologie Physico-chimique.
In 1940, he immigrated to the United States. From 1940 to 1951, he was research professor of physiological chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He became a U.S. citizen in 1946.
