Investigations on vitamins were recognized in 1937 and 1938 with the prizes to Sir Norman Haworth from Birmingham and Paul Karrer from Zürich and to Richard Kuhn from Heidelberg. Haworth did outstanding work in carbohydrate chemistry, establishing the ring structure of glucose. He was the first chemist to synthesize vitamin C, and this is the basis for the present large-scale production of this nutrient. Haworth shared the prize with Karrer, who determined the structure of carotene and of vitamin A. Kuhn also worked on carotenoids, and he published the structure of vitamin B2 at the same time as Karrer. He also isolated vitamin B6. In 1939 the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was shared between Adolf Butenandt from Berlin and Leopold Ruzicka (1887-1976) of ETH, Zurich. Butenandt was recognized "for his work on sex hormones", having isolated estrone, progesterone and androsterone. Ruzicka synthesized androsterone and also testosterone.

The awards for outstanding work in natural-product chemistry continued after World War II. In 1947 Sir Robert Robinson from Oxford received the prize for his studies on plant substances, particularly alkaloids, such as morphine. Robinson also synthesized steroid hormones, and he elucidated the structure of penicillin. Many hormones are of a polypeptide nature, and in 1955 Vincent du Vigneaud of Cornell University was given the prize for his synthesis of two such hormones, vasopressin and oxytocin. Finally, in this area, Alexander R. Todd (Lord Todd since 1962) was recognized in 1957 "for his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes". Todd had synthesized ATP (adenosine triphosphate) and ADP (adenosine diphosphate), the main energy carriers in living cells, and he determined the structure of vitamin B12 (cf. Section 3.5) and of FAD (flavin-adenine dinucleotide).

3.10 Analytical Chemistry and Separation Science
Inorganic chemists, organic chemists and biochemists develop analytical methods as part of their regular research. It is consequently natural that not many Nobel Prizes have been awarded for contributions specifically in analytical chemistry. One such prize was, however, that to Fritz Pregl from Graz in 1923 for his development of organic microanalysis. The medical biochemist from Uppsala, Olof Hammarsten, who gave the presentation speech as Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, stressed that Pregl's work constituted an improvement rather than a discovery, in accord with Nobel's will. Pregl modified existing methods for quantitative elemental analysis of organic substances to handle very small quantities, which saved time, labor and expense. Another prize in analytical chemistry was given to Jaroslav Heyrovsky from Prague in 1959 for his development of polarographic methods of analysis. In these a dropping mercury electrode is employed to determine current-voltage curves for electrolytes. A given ion reacts at a specific voltage, and the current is a measure of the concentration of this ion.

The analysis of macromolecular constituents in living organisms requires specialized methods of separation. One such method is ultracentrifugation, developed by The Svedberg from Uppsala a few years before he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1926 "for his work on disperse systems" (see Section 3.11). Svedberg's student, Arne Tiselius, studied the migration of protein molecules in an electric field, and with this method, named electrophoresis, he demonstrated the complex nature of blood proteins. Tiselius also refined adsorption analysis, a method first used by the Russian botanist, Michail Tswett, for the separation of plant pigments and named chromatography by him. In 1948 Tiselius was given the prize for these achievements. A few years later (1952) Archer J.P. Martin from London and Richard L.M. Synge from Bucksburn (Scotland) shared the prize "for their invention of partition chromatography", and this method was a major tool in many biochemical investigations later awarded with Nobel Prizes (see Section 3.12).

3.11 Polymers and Colloids
Polymeric substances in solution, including life constituents, such as proteins and polysaccharides, are in a colloidal state, i.e., they exist as suspensions of particles one-millionth to one-thousandth of a centimeter in size. In the case of the biological polymers the individual molecules are so large that they form a colloidal suspension, but many other substances can be obtained in a colloidal state. A much-studied example is aggregates of gold atoms, and the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for 1925 was given to Richard Zsigmondy from Göttingen for demonstrating the heterogeneous nature of such gold sols. He did this with the aid of an instrument, the ultramicroscope, which he had developed in collaboration with scientists at the Zeiss factory in Jena. With this instrument the particles and their motion can be observed by the light they scatter at a right angle to the direction of the illuminating light beam. Early work in colloid chemistry had also been carried out by Wolfgang Ostwald, son of the 1909 Laureate Wilhelm Ostwald, but this was not of a caliber earning him a Nobel Prize.