(b. Vienna, Austria, 5 June 1908; d. Sceaux, near Paris, 19 October 1988),

chemistry of natural products, biochemistry, immunology.

Lederer was one of France’s leading mid- and late-twentieth-century chemists and biochemists. He left his mark on the chemistry of natural products (plant and animal pigments and odorants) and saw to a rebirth of chromatography as a tool for microanalysis. His elucidation of the structure and role of lipids and peptidolipids from mycobacteria led to the discovery of novel immunostimulants.

Early Life and Turmoil. The turmoil of the twentieth century did not spare Edgar Lederer and his family. Fleeing anti-Semitism in his native Vienna, he went in 1930 to Heidelberg, Germany. He had to leave Germany in a rush when the Nazis came to power in 1933. A refugee in Paris, he accepted a call to work in Leningrad. His stay there, too, was curtailed by the Stalinist purges. He was unaware to some extent of the magnitude of the danger, but his wife was politically more critical, and her good advice prevailed. Lederer returned to France—only to be drafted as a soldier in the so-called Phony War, and to be subsequently hounded as a Jew by the Vichy police and by the fascist thugs of the Milice. Only at age thirty-six could he resume his scientific work in relative peace.

Regardless of the turbulence of his life, Lederer was always dapper, with the appearance and demeanor of a British gentleman. Tall and bony, he seemed devoid of muscle and fat. His blue-eyed face, somewhat equine and crowned with blond hair, had a kind look. Furthering the impression of Britishness was the fact that English was his first language; he learned it from his English nurse. A polyglot, he also spoke and wrote German, French, Russian, and Italian.

Lederer came from a Jewish family in Vienna. His father was a business attorney. His mother, highly cultured, taught him French. The influence of his maternal uncles, Hans Przibram, a biologist, and Karl Przibram, a physicist, together with that of his natural history teacher in the gymnasium, caused him to opt for the sciences. At the University of Vienna he went on to receive his PhD in 1930 after two years in Ernst Späth’s laboratory, working on the synthesis of indole alkaloids. Meanwhile, he began lifelong friendships with fellow students Erwin Chargaff and Percy Lavon Julian, who went on to distinguished careers in the United States. After he had obtained his PhD degree, his advisor told him bluntly that he had to leave the university. His being Jewish precluded any university appointment, even as a research assistant. Anti-Semitism in Austria was indeed virulent.

The Rediscovery of Chromatography. Compared to Austria, Germany seemed more lenient. In September 1930 Lederer joined Richard Kuhn’s group at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut für Medizinische Forschung (Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research) in Heidelberg. As a postdoctoral fellow in Kuhn’s laboratory, Lederer applied himself to clarifying the structure of vitamin A. His first results contradicted...