Konrad Emil Bloch

He first met his future wife Lore Teutsch in Munich and married her in the United States in 1941. They were blessed with two children, son, Peter and daughter, Susan.

He was a music lover, enjoyed tennis and skiing and was well-known for his modesty.

He passed away on October 15, 2000 after suffering congestive heart failure at the ‘Lahey Clinic’ in Burlington, Massachusetts.

He was born on January 21, 1912, in Neisse, Upper Silesia, at that time a part of the German Empire, in a middle-class family to Fritz Bloch and Hedwig née Striemer as their second child.

He studied in an elementary school followed by the Realgymnasium. He moved to Munich in 1930 and enrolled at the “Technical University of Munich’ (TUM) to study chemistry and chemical engineering. Soon he became interested in organic chemistry and was highly motivated by the teaching of German organic chemist and Nobel Laureate Hans Fischer.

He used to hear great organic chemists like Rudolf Willstätter, Heinrich Wieland and Adolph Windaus while attending the Sessions of the Münchener Chemische Gesellschaft. These great scientists reporting on their research works on enzymes, steroids and porphyrins in such sessions had an immense influence on him.

In 1934 he received the Diplom-Ingenieur in Chemistry. However atrocities of the Nazis against the Jews and rise of Adolf Hitler forced him to leave Germany.

Initially he settled in Davos, Switzerland, where he joined the Swiss institute, ‘Schweizerische Forschungsinstitut’ in a temporary position. In this institute he was exposed for the first time to biochemical investigations when he was delegated to examine the phospholipids of tubercle bacilli, the bacteria responsible for tuberculosis.

After completing his Ph.D he was invited by Rudolf Schoenheimer, a German-American biochemist to join the latter’s research team. He stayed in Columbia from 1939 to 1946 and worked with Schoenheimer and his associate, US biochemist David Rittenberg for a few years.

He came to know regarding the use of radioisotopes while working with Schoenheimer and his research team. According to Bloch, he developed an enduring interest in the study of intermediary metabolism as also the issues of biosynthesis.

Following the death of Schoenheimer in 1941, Bloch collaborated with Rittenberg and commenced work on biological synthesis of cholesterol. Through their investigations, they found acetate as a key component of cholesterol. This marked the beginning of his research on complicated pattern of steps in biological synthesis of cholesterol, a subject that he worked on for almost twenty years.

In 1944 he became a naturalized citizen of the US.

He moved to Chicago in 1946 where he was inducted as Assistant Professor of Biochemistry in the ‘University of Chicago’. Apart from his investigations on biosynthesis of cholesterol he also began examining the enzymatic synthesis of tripeptide glutathione along with J. Snoke.

His work on biosynthesis of cholesterol not only manifested the importance of cholesterol in human body but also contributed towards further research to understand how the human body regulate level of cholesterol in blood and tissue.