Leloir, Luis Federico, << lay LWAHR, loo EES fay thay REE koh >> (1906-1987), a French-born Argentine biochemist, discovered some chemical compounds that affect the storage of chemical energy in living things.
Leloir researched the formation and chemical breakdown in the body of lactose (a sugar present in milk) and of glycogen (a carbohydrate energy source stored in the liver). As a result of his studies of sugars, Leloir discovered sugar nucleotides. Sugar nucleotides are compounds that combine part of a sugar molecule with a nucleotide as a step in building different sugar molecules. Nucleotides are compounds of sugar, phosporic acid, and other chemicals, which are the main constituents of the hereditary material found in genes. Leloir’s studies led to an understanding of how the body transforms sugars from one compound to another, and stimulated much further research. For his discoveries, Leloir was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1970.
Leloir was born in Paris to Argentine parents and lived mainly in Buenos Aires after he was 2 years old. He studied at the universities of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Cambridge, England. He later set up the Institute of Biochemical Research in Buenos Aires. Leloir’s other research work included the oxidation of fatty acids in the liver; the formation of angiotensin, a substance that affects blood pressure; and a study of diabetes and the adrenal glands, hormone-producing glands above the kidneys. Leloir announced his discovery of a sugar nucleotide in 1949. By the time of his Nobel Prize in 1970, he and other scientists had discovered more than 100 sugar nucleotides.
