Hopkins Announces the Discovery of Tryptophan.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the field of biochemistry was relatively new. Sir Frederick Hopkins brought new insight into this area of thought when he was able to visualize cells as biochemical machines and piece together the significance of isolated chemical processes on the workings of cells. This research was a result of the background with which Hopkins entered the biochemical field. He had originally been trained in the field of analytic chemistry and soon became an assistant to Sir Thomas Stevenson, the medical jurist at Guy’s Hospital. Hopkins became involved in the investigation of several murder cases, and his analytic chemistry skills helped to gain convictions. Hopkins worked in the medical school by day and in a clinical research laboratory by night. At the invitation of Michael Foster, he began teaching chemical physiology at Cambridge University in September, 1898. Hopkins had no special training in biochemistry.