Nobel Prize in Chemistry Recipient. Adolf von Baeyer, a German Chemist, was awarded the 1905 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on organic dyes and hydroaromatic compounds, and was widely known as one of the best-known teachers of organic chemistry worldwide. Born Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf Baeyer to parents Johann Jacob Baeyer(1794-1885), a Prussian officer and a well known geodesist, and his wife Eugenie Hitzig(1807–1843); Adolf, with a prodigious aptitude early in childhood, experimented with chemicals and plant nutrition to the extent that within several years he discovered and synthesized a previously unknown double carbonate of copper and sodium. By the age of 13, he was using Indigo among his first dye experiments, of which he would revisit later as a doctorate in organic chemistry. He first attended Berlin University followed by the University of Heidelberg studying under Robert Bunsen but since there was a disagreement, he then was mentored by future Nobel Laureate, August Kekulé. After earning his doctorate, he joined Dr Kekulé at the University of Ghent, later becoming a lecturer at the Royal Trade Academy in 1860, and then professor at the Universities of Strasbourg in 1871 and Munich in 1875. During these times, he became best-known for the synthesis and description of the plant blue dye Indigo, which he later discovered could be produced industrially from coal tar at much less expense, and other phthalein dyes; the discovery of barbituric acid in 1864, which was the base for barbiturates; and for the first to obtain synthetic fluorescein, a fluorophore pigment, a precursor for Leo Baekeland's later commercialization of Bakelite. In addition to his work on organic dyes and hydroaromatic compounds leading to the Nobel Prize, his contributions to theoretical chemistry included the "strain" or Spannung theory of triple bonds and small carbon rings; also leading to additional awards and memberships to include the Davy Medal in 1881, Liebig Medal in 1903, Elliott Cresson Medal in 1912, fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, member of Order Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts, the Prussian Academy of Sciences in 1884. Additionally, the annual Adolf von Baeyer Medal was established in his honor as of 1911. Amongst the many of his doctoral students during his career, he mentored the likes of future Nobel Laureate, Emil Fischer. Also notably, Adolph was knighted as Ritter von Baeyer in 1885 and in 2009, the von Baeyer lunar crater was named in honor of him. He continued to work actively up to within a year of his death of which, was the result of a seizure at his country home in Starnberger.