<Li> It was proposed to be the intermediary between energy - yielding and energy - requiring reactions in cells by Fritz Albert Lipmann in 1941 . </Li> <Li> It was first synthesized in the laboratory by Alexander Todd in 1948 . </Li> <Li> The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1997 was divided, one half jointly to Paul D. Boyer and John E. Walker for their elucidation of the enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and the other half to Jens C. Skou for the first discovery of an ion - transporting enzyme, Na+, K+ - ATPase . </Li> <Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in German . (October 2017) Click (show) for important translation instructions . (show) <Ul> <Li> View a machine - translated version of the German article . </Li> <Li> Google's machine translation is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy - pasting machine - translated text into the English Wikipedia . </Li> <Li> Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low - quality . If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign - language article . </Li> <Li> You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation . A model attribution edit summary (using German): Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at ((: de: Exact name of German article)); see its history for attribution . </Li> <Li> You should also add the template ((Translated de Karl Lohmann (Biochemiker))) to the talk page . </Li> <Li> For more guidance, see Wikipedia: Translation . </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> </Table>

What is the primary role of atp in metabolism