leading to the discovery of pantothenic acid, published in 1933, which prompted renewed interest among biochemists in microbial metabolism. Williams and his colleagues in Texas – including Robert Eakin, Beverly Guirard, Esmond Snell, William Shive, and Lester Reed – continued this work and used the technique to discover a number of other vitamins and nutrients. Williams and Snell, along with student Herschel K. Mitchell, isolated and named folic acid by extracting it from four tons of processed spinach. He also worked on discovering and isolating vitamin B6, lipoic acid, and avidin. Throughout his career Williams was a prolific writer, producing not only hundreds of scientific papers but also a number of widely used textbooks. Williams retired from his role at the director of the Biochemical Institute in 1963 and from the University of Texas in 1986. Nutrition Educator Roger Williams devoted much of his later years to educating the public about the benefits of complete and proper nutrition to good health. This consisted chiefly of him writing popular books about nutrition. One of Williams's popular books is entitled Biochemical Individuality. In it, Williams emphasized the uniqueness of each person in their metabolic makeup and micronutrient needs. Because of "biochemical individuality", nutritional requirements are not fully the same for everybody. Awards and honors Elected to the National Academy of Sciences, 1946 President of the American Chemical Society, 1957 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Personal life Williams married his high school sweetheart Hazel Elizabeth Wood in 1916 during his stint teaching in California. The couple had three children. After Hazel died in 1952, he married Mabel Phyllis Hobson; the two enjoyed extensive travel. Williams also enjoyed fishing and golf and played the violin and piano. For most of his life Williams suffered from eyestrain caused by aniseikonia, a condition that was not recognized during his youth; he had glasses specially made to treat the condition in the 40s. Williams died on February 20, 1988. His wife Phyllis survived him and died in 2004. Books The Human Frontier (Harcourt Brace, 1946) The Biochemistry of B vitamins, Roger J. Williams and others (Reinhold Pub. Corp., 1950) Nutrition and Alcoholism, Roger J. Williams (Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1951) Free and Unequal: The Biological Basis of Individual Liberty. (Univ. of Texas Press, 1953) Biochemical Individuality: The Basis for the Genetotrophic Concept (John Wiley & Sons, 1956; University of Texas Press, 1969