Bernhard Witkop (May 9, 1917 in Freiburg, Baden – November 22, 2010 in Chevy Chase, Maryland) was a German-born American organic chemist who worked for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for 37 years.
[1] During those years, Witkop – along with his recruit, John Daly, and others – discovered the NIH shift, a term describing the movement of hydrogen, deuterium or tritium to adjacent carbons on aromatic rings during oxidation, a process key in developing many therapies.
[1] “He brought in the first visiting fellow from Japan at a time when we were still in the shadow of World War II,” said Kenneth Jacobson, Chief of the NIDDK Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry.
“He broke the ice.” Other honors, among many, included election to the National Academy of Sciences (1969) and the American Philosophical Society (1999) as well as the Paul Karrer Gold Medal from the University of Zurich (1971).
Apparently, he was at the cabin, had some big idea and drove to the lab at NIH in the middle of the night, did whatever he needed to do, and then came back.” Witkop served as head of the NIDDK Laboratory of Chemistry for 30 years.