Oriel College
Where was Alexander R. Todd educated from 1931 to 1933?
Alexander R . Todd Alexander Robertus Todd , Baron Todd ( 2 October 1907 – 10 January 1997 ) was a Scottish biochemist whose research on the structure and synthesis of nucleotides , nucleosides , and nucleotide coenzymes gained him the Nobel Prize for Chemistry . Early life and education . Todd was born in Cathcart in outer Glasgow , the son of Alexander Todd , a clerk with the Glasgow Subway , and his wife , Jane Lowry . He attended Allan Glens School and graduated from the University of Glasgow with a BSc in 1928 . He received a PhD ( Dr.phil.nat. ) from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main in 1931 for his thesis on the chemistry of the bile acids . Todd was awarded an 1851 Research Fellowship from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 , and , after studying at Oriel College , Oxford , he gained another doctorate in 1933 . Career . Todd held posts with the Lister Institute , the University of Edinburgh ( staff , 1934–1936 ) and the University of London , where he was appointed Reader in Biochemistry . In 1938 , Alexander Todd spent six months as a visiting professor at California Institute of Technology , eventually declining an offer of faculty position . Todd became the Sir Samuel Hall Chair of Chemistry and Director of the Chemical Laboratories of the University of Manchester in 1938 , where he began working on nucleosides , compounds that form the structural units of nucleic acids ( DNA and RNA ) . In 1944 , he was appointed to the 1702 Chair of Chemistry in the University of Cambridge , which he held until his retirement in 1971 . In 1949 , he synthesised adenosine triphosphate ( ATP ) and flavin adenine dinucleotide ( FAD ) . Todd served as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago in Autumn 1948 and University of Sydney in 1950 . In 1955 , he helped elucidate the structure of vitamin B , although the final formula and definite structure was determined by Dorothy Hodgkin and her team , and later worked on the structure and synthesis of vitamin B and vitamin E , the anthocyanins ( the pigments of flowers and fruits ) from insects ( aphids , beetles ) and studied alkaloids found in hashish and marijuana . He served as chairman of the Government of the United Kingdoms advisory committee on scientific policy from 1952 to 1964 . He was elected a Fellow of Christs College , Cambridge in 1944 and was Master from 1963 to 1978 . He became Chancellor of the University of Strathclyde in 1975 , and a visiting professor at Hatfield Polytechnic ( 1978–1986 ) . Among his many honours , including over 40 honorary degrees , he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1942 , was President of the Royal Society from 1975 to 1980 and became a member of the Order of Merit in 1977 . In 1981 , Todd became a founding member of the World Cultural Council . He died in Cambridge on 10 January 1997 following a heart attack . Family . In 1937 Baron Todd married Alison Sarah Dale ( d.1987 ) , daughter of Nobel Prize winner Sir Henry Dale , who , as Todd did , served as President of the Royal Society of London . They had a son , Alexander Henry , and two daughters , Helen Jean and Hilary Alison . Honours . Todd was honoured as a Nieuwland Lecturer at the University of Notre Dame in 1948 , an Arthur D . Little Visiting Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1954 , and a Hitchcock Lecturer at University of California , Berkeley , in 1957 . He was knighted as Sir Alexander Todd in 1954 and was created a Life Peer as Baron Todd of Trumpington in the County of Cambridge on 16 April 1962 . He is commemorated by a blue plaque erected by the Royal Society of Chemistry at the University of Cambridges Department of Chemistry .