Doisy, Edward Adelbert

Doisy, Edward Adelbert (doi`zē), 1893–1986, American biochemist, b. Hume, Ill., grad. Univ. of Illinois (B.A., 1914), Ph.D. Harvard, 1920. For his discovery of the chemical nature of vitamin K he shared with Henrik Dam the 1943 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Doisy and others synthesized vitamin K in 1939. He contributed to the knowledge of metabolism, insulin, and blood buffers and isolated the female sex hormones estrone (1929) and estradiol (1936). He taught biochemistry at Harvard (1915–17) and at the medical school of Washington Univ., St. Louis (1919–23), and was professor of biochemistry at the medical school of St. Louis Univ. (1923–65).