Organic chemist Georg Wittig's investigations led him to discover in 1953 a chemical process for synthesizing complex compounds such as vitamin A, vitamin D derivatives, steroids, and biological pesticides. Because of this process, known as the Wittig reaction , such compounds can now routinely be synthesized. For his work in organic synthesis, and especially for the Wittig reaction, he shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Herbert C. Brown.

Georg Friedrich Karl Wittig was born on June 16, 1897, in Berlin, Germany, to Gustav Wittig, a professor of fine arts at the University of Berlin, and Martha (Dombrowski) Wittig. He went to grade school at the Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Kassel. In 1916 he enrolled at the University of Tübingen, but interrupted his college years to serve in World War I. After moving to the University of Marburg in 1920, he began postgraduate studies in chemistry under the guidance of Karl von Auwers. After...