German biochemist and corecipient, with Archibald V. Hill (Hill, A.V.), of the 1922 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for research on the chemical reactions of metabolism in muscle. His work on the glycogen-lactic acid cycle remains a basic contribution to the understanding of muscular action, despite revisions resulting from the later research of others.

After receiving his M.D. from the University of Heidelberg in 1909, Meyerhof held posts in physiology and physical chemistry at Kiel and other German universities. From 1929 to 1938 he headed the department of physiology at the Kaiser Wilhelm (now Max Planck) Institute for Medical Research at Heidelberg. After two years in Paris, he served as research professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He lectured widely in England and the United States and wrote The Chemical Dynamics of Life Phenomena (1924).