Kendall, Edward Calvin

Kendall, Edward Calvin, 1886–1972, American biochemist, b. South Norwalk, Conn., grad. Columbia (B.S., 1908; Ph.D., 1910). At St. Luke's Hospital, New York City, he did research on the thyroid gland (1911–14). He became (1914) head of the biochemistry section at the Mayo Clinic and was (1921–51) professor of physiological chemistry at the Mayo Foundation (affiliated with the Univ. of Minnesota). After 1952 he was professor of chemistry at Princeton. He shared with Philip S. Hench and Tadeus Reichstein the 1950 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the hormones of the adrenal gland cortex. Kendall isolated and identified a series of compounds from the adrenal gland cortex, prepared cortisone by partial synthesis (with Merck & Co., Inc.), and with P. S. Hench, H. F. Polley, and C. H. Slocumb, investigated the effects of cortisone and of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) on rheumatoid arthritis. Other contributions include the isolation of thyroxine (1914) and the crystallization of glutathione and establishment of its chemical structure.