1449 Virtanen, provisional designation 1938 DO, is a stony asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, about 10 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered by Finnish astronomer Yrjö Väisälä at Turku Observatory on 20 February 1938. Photometric observations during 2008 showed a rotation period of 30.459 ± 0.005 hours and a brightness variation of 0.60 ± 0.02 in magnitude. The asteroid was named after famous Finnish biochemist Artturi Virtanen (1895–1973), recipient of the 1945 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and president of the Academy of Finland for many years.