death_date death_place birth_place image_size nationality field birth_date doctoral_students prizes image article_title name
9 june 1959 göttingen , west germany berlin , german empire 180px germany organic chemistry biochemistry 25 december 1876 adolf butenandt erhard fernholz nobel prize for chemistry -lrb- 1928 -rrb- windaus.jpg adolf otto reinhold windaus
 adolf otto reinhold windaus
adolf otto reinhold windaus

adolf otto reinhold windaus -lrb- 25 december 1876 -- 9 june 1959 -rrb- was a german chemist who won a nobel prize in chemistry in 1928 for his work on sterols and their relation to vitamins .
he was the doctoral advisor of adolf butenandt who also won a nobel prize in chemistry in 1939 .
adolf windaus was born in berlin .
his interest in chemistry was raised by lectures of emil fischer .
he started studying medicine and chemistry in berlin and later in freiburg .
he got his phd in early 1900 and focused on cholesterol and other sterols at the university of freiburg .
in 1913 he became professor for chemistry at the university of innsbruck and in 1915 he changed to the university of göttingen where he stayed until his retirement in 1944 .
he was involved in the discovery of the transformation of cholesterol through several steps to vitamin d3 -lrb- cholecalciferol -rrb- .
he gave his patents to merck and bayer and they brought out the medical vigantol in 1927 .
