He was born in
Linköping as the son of Thure Theorell and his wife Armida Bill. Theorell went to Secondary School at
Katedralskolan in Linköping and passed his examination there on 23 May 1921. In September, he began to study medicine at the
Karolinska Institute and in 1924 he graduated as a Bachelor of Medicine. He then spent three months studying
bacteriology at the
Pasteur Institute in
Paris under Professor
Albert Calmette. In 1930 he obtained his M.D. degree with a theory on the lipids of the blood plasma, and was appointed professor in physiological chemistry at the Karolinska Institute. Theorell, who dedicated his entire career to enzyme research, received the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1955 for discovering
oxidoreductase enzymes and their effects. His contribution also consisted of the theory of the toxic effects of sodium fluoride on the cofactors of crucial human enzymes. In 1936 he was appointed Head of the newly established Biochemical Department of the Nobel Medical Institute, the first researcher related to the Institute to be awarded a Nobel Prize. His work had led to pioneering progress on
alcohol dehydrogenases, enzymes that break down alcohol in the liver and other tissues. He received honorary degrees at universities in
France,
Belgium,
Brazil and the
United States. He was a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the United States
National Academy of Sciences, and an International Member of the
American Philosophical Society. Theorell died in Stockholm and is interred in
Norra begravningsplatsen (The Northern Cemetery) alongside his wife, Elin Margit Elisabeth (née Alenius) Theorell, a distinguished pianist and harpsichordist who died in 2002. ==References==