Artturi Ilmari Virtanen

Artturi Ilmari Virtanen (1895 to 1973) was a Finnish chemist who received the 1945 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research and inventions in agricultural and nutrition chemistry, especially his fodder preservation method. He invented AIV silage, which improved milk production, and a method of preserving butter, the AIV salt, which raised Finnish butter exports. Born in Helsinki, he studied chemistry at the University of Helsinki, took his doctorate in organic chemistry in 1918, worked in the laboratories of the dairy producer Valio, and studied physical chemistry, soil chemistry and microbiology in Switzerland, Germany and Sweden. Back in Finland he became lecturer at the University of Helsinki in 1924 and professor of biochemistry at the Helsinki University of Technology in 1931 and at the University of Helsinki in 1939, and he stayed at the Institute for Biochemistry from its founding in 1930 until his death in 1973. In 1933 he bought a farm near Helsinki where he tested his results in practice.