1881-1965

German chemist who won the 1953 Nobel Prize as the major founder of macromolecular chemistry during the 1920s. Staudinger proved that macromolecules are not aggregates of smaller molecules joined by weak inter-molecular bonds, but rather are long chains of single molecular units connected by regular organic (Kekule) bonds. Staudinger also founded the journal Makromolekulare Chemie and pioneered research into biological macromolecules such as cellulose and amino-acid sequences.