Ian Heilbron

Sir Ian Morris Heilbron (1886-1959) was a Scottish organic chemist born in Glasgow whose research on natural products, including sterols, vitamin D, vitamin A and polyene synthesis, made lasting contributions to therapeutic and industrial chemistry. He held professorships at the University of Liverpool from 1920 to 1933, the University of Manchester from 1933 to 1938, and Imperial College London from 1938 to 1949, and during this time he helped develop DDT for combating malaria and yellow fever and contributed to studies of penicillin's structure. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1931, received the Davy Medal in 1943, and in 1945 became the first non-American to receive the Priestley Medal; he was knighted in 1946.