Hans Krebs was born in Hildesheim, Germany in 1900. In 1925 he received his Ph.D. in medicine at Hamburg and engaged in research at the Imperial Institute of Biology in Berlin and Freiburg. When the Nazis came to power, he left for England, to Cambridge University. In 1935 he moved to Sheffield University, where he studied the breathing mechanism in the cell, and from 1954 he worked at Oxford University.

In 1953 Hans Krebs won the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine together with Fritz Lippman for the discovery of the citric acid cycle in the cell, which has since been named after him – the Krebs Cycle.

The deciphering of the citric acid cycle enabled biochemists to understand an important part of the mechanism by which the cell turns food into energy. The discoveries of Hans Krebs, who passed away in 1981, are the cornerstones of modern Biochemistry.