Five years after the publication of Wohler’s results, the French chemist Anselme Payen
discovered the first known enzyme. Enzymes are proteins that speed up or slow down chemical
reactions in the body. Payen’s enzyme was called cliastase. Diastase is a type of enzyme
responsible for the breakdown ot starches into maltose. Starches are complex carbohydrates
found commonly in potatoes and rice, while maltose is a sugar. Payen found diastase in a malt
solution that he created using grain sugar. in 1897, Edward and Hans Buchner of Germany
furthered the understanding of enzyme functions. Their experiments used
extracted enzyme—c0ntaining material from yeast cells. The brothers
demonstrated that the inanimate extracted material could ferment sugar. They
showed that “dead” cellular compounds can perform the chemical reactions
of living cells.