Sir Alan Rushton Battersby

Sir Alan Rushton Battersby FRS (born 4 March 1925) is a British organic chemist known for his work on the genetic blueprint, structure, and synthetic pathway of Cyanocobalamin. This came in collaboration with a partner and also in relation to work on plant alkaloids. He won the Copley Medal in 2000 and has also won other awards such as Royal Medal in 1984.

Birth and academic career

Battersby was born in the United Kingdom. He was Professor of Organic Chemistry at Cambridge University from 1988 - 1992 and is Fellow Emeritus of St Catharine's College, Cambridge.

Research

Battersby is known for his research on the biosynthesis of the 'pigments of life' haem, chlorophyll and vitamin B12, that are built on closely related tetrapyrrolic structural frameworks. He has demonstrated and elucidated the essential role played by two enzymes, deaminase and cosynthetase, in the construction of the tetrapyrrolic ring with its specific structural features.

In 1988, he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was awarded the Wolf Prize in Chemistry along with Duilio Arigoni of ETH Zurich in 1989 for "their fundamental contributions to the elucidation of the mechanism of enzymic reactions and of the biosynthesis of natural products, in particular the pigments of life".