Arne Tiselius

Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius was born in Sweden on 10 August 1902. He became a biochemist at a time when the protein contents of blood remained essentially invisible to science. His work on electrophoresis - using an electric field to separate molecules by charge - gave researchers the first clear view of serum's complexity, revealing that what looked like one substance was in fact a mixture of distinct proteins. The breakthrough also advanced adsorption analysis, the study of how molecules cling to surfaces. In 1948 he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discoveries. He continued working until his death on 29 October 1971, having handed science a tool it still uses to read the body's chemical language.