Eduard Buchner (German: [ˈeːduaʁt ˈbuːxnɐ] ; 20 May 1860 – 13 August 1917) was a German
and expert on fermentation (sometimes called a
Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on
Munich to a physician and Doctor Extraordinary of Forensic Medicine. His older brother was the bacteriologist
Hans Ernst August Buchner. In 1884, he began studies of chemistry with Adolf von Baeyer and of botany with Carl Nägeli, at the Botanic Institute in Munich. After a period working with Otto Fischer (cousin of Emil Fischer) at the University of Erlangen, Buchner was awarded a doctorate from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in 1888 under Theodor Curtius.
Buchner was appointed assistant lecturer in the organic laboratory of
Adolf von Baeyer in 1889 at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. In 1891, he was promoted to lecturer at the same university.
In the autumn of 1893, Buchner moved to
Kiel University and appointed professor in 1895. In the next year, he was appointed Professor Extraordinary for Analytical and Pharmaceutical Chemistry in the chemical laboratory of H. von Pechmann at the
In October 1898, he was appointed to the Chair of General Chemistry in the
Agricultural University of Berlin, fully training his assistants by himself, and received his habilitation in 1900.
In 1909, he was transferred to the
University of Breslau (reorganised to be
University of Wrocław in 1945), and in 1911, he moved to University of Würzburg.
in 1907. The experiment for which Buchner won the Nobel Prize consisted of producing a
yeast cells and showing that this "press juice" could ferment sugar. This dealt yet another blow to
vitalism by showing that the presence of living yeast cells was not needed for fermentation. The cell-free extract was produced by combining dry yeast cells,
kieselguhr and then pulverizing the yeast cells with a pestle and mortar. This mixture would then become moist as the yeast cells' contents would come out of the cells. Once this step was done, the moist mixture would be put through a press and the resulting "press juice" had