Casimir Funk

✶February 23, 1884

†November 20, 1967

No one has lit a candle yet. Be the first.

About their life

Casimir Funk was a Polish biochemist who formulated the definitive concept of vitamins and was the first to isolate a vitamin from rice bran in 1911. He coined the term "vitamines" in his landmark 1912 medical writing, establishing a major shift in scientific thinking by proving that specific nutritional deficiencies cause diseases such as beriberi, pellagra, and rickets. While the English chemist Frederick Gowland Hopkins had earlier hypothesized the existence of "accessory food factors," it was Funk who provided the definitive functional theory and nomenclature. His scientific work involved research in interwar Poland, France, and the United Kingdom. In 1920, he became a citizen of the United States where he continued his work.

Polish-American biochemist

☆ Follow

Biography from the article Casimir Funk on the English Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.