Jens Christian Skou Biography - Nobel Prize Winner (1997)

Jens Christian Skou (born October 8, 1918) is a Danish chemist and Nobel laureate.

Skou was born in Lemvig, Denmark in a wealthy family. His father Magnus Martinus Skou were timber and coal merchants. His mother Ane-Margrethe Skou took over the company after the death of his father.

At the age of 15 Skou entered a boarding school in Haslev, Zealand. He graduated in medicine from the University of Copenhagen in 1944 and received his doctorate in 1954. He began working at the University of Aarhus in 1947 and was appointed professor of biophysics in 1977. He retired from the University of Aarhus in 1988, but has kept his offices at the institute.

In 1997 he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (together with Paul D. Boyer and John E. Walker) for his discovery of Na+,K+-ATPase