Gerty Cori The discoverer of the structure
of Something Sweet .... Simple Sugar
Well namely glucose -1- phosphate the most simple
sugar, not Sucrose which most people think of as sugar. What's the difference? Well to keep it as simple as possible, Sugar is like a short train with a couple cars, an engine and a caboose. So the stuff we think of
as normal sugar ( Cane or Beet ) is actually two small sugars linked (bonded together) Glucose + Fructose =
Sucrose (Table Sugar, Cane or Beet). What Gerty discovered was the formula for the simplest sugar Glucose, and if you look at the structural drawing on the stamp above you'll see an almost correct structure for the molecule called Glucose. The error lies in the fact that an oxygen atom usually forms 2 bonds, and they have connected the wrong oxygen atom in the structure
in the picture above. The little line, which represents a chemical bond, connects to the second O in OPO3, which is the Phosphate Linkage, and it should have connected to the First O in OPO3.
The fun thing is its this functional Group, this Phosphate which allowed Gerty to isolate the so called Cori Ester, that won Gerty Cori the Noble Prize. This Phosphate chemistry is very important in anything that builds using Sugar Groups or backbones...This OPO3 is even seen with in our own DNA, as a key bonding structure. Some maybe some good will come from this error, and more people will look at and wonder about the marvelous Chemistry that makes up Sugar, and even us! ( Credit for this error discovery goes to an anonmyous reader of C&EN News, Chemical and Engineering News Jan. 29 2008 Issue.)
Makes you wonder?
DoctorSlime
