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Isolation of Diastase
- When
- 1833
- Where
- French sugar factory
Payen and Persoz extracted diastase from malt solution at a French sugar factory in 1833, identifying it as the first enzyme.
The chemists isolated diastase, a substance that catalyzes the breakdown of starch into maltose. Their work involved analyzing the products of its reactions, including maltotriose and dextrins, and exploring applications to industrial arts. This event is often cited as the beginning of biochemistry.
Sources
- Diastase Wikipedia, revision of 2024-12-16
- Anselme Payen Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-29
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.