Gustav Georg Embden (10 November 1874 – 25 July 1933) was a German physiological chemist.

Embden initially studied in Freiburg, Strasbourg, Munich, Berlin, and Zurich under the famous physiologists of his time, including Johannes von Kries, Franz Hofmeister, Gaule, Paul Ehrlich, and Julius Richard Ewald.

[1] Embden conducted studies on carbohydrate metabolism and muscle contraction, and he was the first to discover and link together all the steps involved in the conversion of glycogen to lactic acid.

[1][2] In 1918, Otto Fritz Meyerhof's work on cellular metabolism showed that the process involved the breakdown of glucose to lactic acid.

[1][2] Some scientific historians, such as Thomas Kuhn, consider the work done in the 1930s in the laboratories of Meyerhof, Parnas, Embden, Warburg, etc.