Sugar nucleotides and carbohydrate biosynthesis
Nucleótidos-azúcar y biosíntesis de glúcidos
- Date
- 1949-1957 · confidence high
- Place
- Campomar Foundation Institute for Biochemical Research, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Credited to
- Luis F. Leloir and collaborators (Cardini, Caputto, Cabib)
- People
- 👤 Luis Federico Leloir1906–1987
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Leloir discovered UDP-glucose and showed that sugar nucleotides are the donors the cell uses to build glycogen, starch and other polysaccharides. Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1970.
Achieved with very modest resources in a small private institute.
What it led to
- the Leloir pathway of galactose metabolism
- glycobiology
- understanding of galactosaemia