John 'Kappa' Cornforth was born in Australia, and has been profoundly deaf since his teens. He moved into the field of organic chemistry at Sydney University where he met his wife Rita.

Together they moved to Oxford and had a profound influence on the work on penicillin during the war. In 1975 he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions. He received his Nobel Prize with Vladimir Prelog in 1975 and was knighted in 1977.

He is a member of the Royal Society and is still very active in chemistry research at Sussex University. This section from longer archive recordings shows his warmth and personality, and gives an insight into an amazing man who has overcome deafness to pursue a brilliant career in science. He was awarded the Australian of the Year in 1975.

External links

• Face To Face Interview With John Cornfoth by The Vega Science Trust (http://vegaserver1.hpc.susx.ac.uk:8080/ramgen/face2face/cornforth.rm)
• How to be right and wrong with John Cornforth by The Vega Science Trust (http://www.vega.org.uk/series/vrs/vrs4/index.php)