Gustav Embden

Who was Gustav Embden?

Gustav Georg Embden was a German chemist.

He taught at the University of Frankfurt am Main from its founding in 1914. He conducted studies on carbohydrate metabolism and muscle contraction, and was the first to discover and link together all the steps involved in the conversion of glycogen to lactic acid. In 1918 Otto Fritz Meyerhof explained – cellular metabolism by showing that it involved the breakdown of glucose to lactic acid. Embden worked out the precise steps involved in the breakdown. This cellular metabolic sequence from glycogen to lactic acid became known as the Embden–Meyerhof pathway. He had also previously studied the liver's metabolic processes, laying a foundation for understanding diabetes.