Edmond H. Fischer

Edmond Henri Fischer was a Swiss-American biochemist, born in 1920, who studied at the University of Geneva during the Second World War, where he enjoyed organic chemistry and also studied biology. He was offered a position at the University of Washington in Seattle and worked there for the rest of his career. With his collaborator Edwin G. Krebs he was awarded the 1992 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for describing how reversible phosphorylation works as a switch that activates proteins and regulates many cellular processes. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Montpellier in France and the University of Basel in Switzerland.