Biochemist and biophysicist Johann Deisenhofer (born 1943) devised a way to use X-ray technology to map the chemical reactions central to plant photosynthesis, earning him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1988.

Deisenhofer has spent his career investigating the design and composition of molecular structures. Through his work at the Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry in his native Germany, Deisenhofer gained experience in the application of X-ray technology as a tool to analyze the structure of crystallized substances. During the 1980s his work aiding a group of German biologists in studying plant photosynthesis--the process whereby light energy from the sun is converted into the chemical energy that maintains life--resulted in the first-ever mapping of the structure of those molecules involved in the chemical reaction integral to the conversion process.

From Farm to Laboratory

Deisenhofer was born on September 30, 1943, in Zusamaltheim, Bavaria (now Germany), a small village located near the city of...