After World War I (1914–1918), he enrolled at the University of Munich (Germany) and later at the University of Berlin (Germany), from which he received an MD degree in 1924.
He enrolled in a remarkable three-month course in biochemistry that was taught by Peter Rona, who had worked with Leonor Michaelis. Rona taught three Nobel prizewinners: E.B. (later Sir Ernst) Chain, Hans (later Sir Hans) Krebs and Lipmann.
After completing his Ph.D. in 1929, Lipmann joined Albert Fischer’s laboratory where he worked on using metabolism as a method to measure cell growth.
In 1941 Lipmann moved to Boston to join the research staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital. In the same year, Lipmann proposed the theory of a metabolic dynamo, with adenosine triphosphate as the general link between energy generation and utilization. There, he set out to study acetyl transfer in animals and to confirm that acetyl phosphate represented active acetate.
In 1945, working with a potent enzyme from pigeon liver extract as an assay system for acetyl transfer in animal tissue, Lipmann and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital discovered Coenzyme A (CoA), the "A" standing for the activation of acetate. In 1947, he isolated and named the coenzyme, and in 1953, he determined its molecular structure.
Fritz Albert Lipmann received the 1953 Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology “for his discovery of coenzyme A [an important catalytic substance in the cellular conversion of food into energy] and its importance for intermediary metabolism.”
Fritz Albert Lipmann (1899 – 1986) - German-American biochemist
