Émile Bourquelot

Émile Bourquelot (21 June 1851 – 26 January 1921) was a French chemist, and professor of pharmacy at the University of Paris.

[1] He was born in Jandun (Ardennes, France), to a farmer, and was the eldest of three sons.

Bourquelot became the Chief Pharmacist at the Laënnec Hospital in 1887, where he established a laboratory to conduct his research into carbohydrate chemistry.

[2] Bourquelot and other French pharmacists pioneered the study of plant glycosides, molecules in which a sugar is bound to a non-carbohydrate part.

They developed methods to stabilize these compounds in solution, and detect them enzymatically.