Duilio Arigoni
Wolf Prize Laureate in Chemistry 1989
Duilio Arigoni
Affiliation at the time of the award:
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Switzerland
Award citation:
“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”.
Prize share:
Duilio Arigoni
Alan R. Battersby
Professors Duilio Arigoni and Alan Battersby have performed pioneering studies on the elucidation of the mechanisms by which natural products are synthesized in biological organisms.
Duilio Arigoni has explored the detailed stereochemical pathways by which enzymes convert their substrates into products. In particular his strategy of penetrating into the structure of enzyme-substrate interactions by concentrating on the detailed stereochemical fate of isotopic substrate labels, led hill to make basic contributions to the mechanism of enzymic reactions requiring coenzyme B12, one of the “pigments of life”.