Edwin J. Cohn

Edwin Joseph Cohn (born December 17, 1892 in New York City , † October 1, 1953 in Boston ) was an American biochemist . He is particularly known for the development of plasma fractionation .

Live and act

Cohn first attended Amherst College . Under the influence of Jacques Loeb , he moved to the University of Chicago , where he studied with Julius Stieglitz and Robert Andrews Millikan . Cohn earned a bachelor's degree in 1914 and a Ph.D. in 1917 from Frank R. Lillie and Lawrence Joseph Henderson. with a thesis on the physiology of spermatozoa .

Cohn then worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Thomas Burr Osborne . From 1919 Cohn dealt with blood and plasma proteins and discovered the most important fractions of the blood plasma ( fibrinogen , immunoglobulins , albumin and others). Research stays took him to Søren Sørensen in Copenhagen, to Svante Arrhenius to Sweden and to William Bate Hardy (1864–1934) and Joseph Barcroft at Cambridge University .

In 1920 Cohn went to Henderson at the newly established department of physical chemistry at Harvard Medical School , which Cohn later took over.

Here he dealt with the solubility , shape, size and electrical charge of proteins. He also succeeded in purifying the substance (later identified as vitamin B ₁₂ ) from liver extracts with which the pernicious anemia could be treated. Further work dealt with the physicochemical properties of peptides and amino acids .

During the Second World War, Cohn headed a working group made up of chemists, physicists and physicians who developed methods such as Cohn extraction to separate protein components of the blood plasma on a large scale ( plasma fractionation ) and thus treat soldiers: albumin was used against hemorrhagic shock , gamma globulins for passive immunization against measles or jaundice and fibrin foam in neurosurgery .

In 1949 Cohen received a full professorship at Harvard Medical School.

Cohn was married to Marianne Brettauer from 1917. The couple had two sons. After the death of Marianne Cohn, Edwin Cohn married Rebekah Higginson in 1948.

Awards

• 1926 member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 1943 member of the National Academy of Sciences
• 1945 Passano Award
• 1949 member of the American Philosophical Society

further reading

• John T. Edsall : Edwin Joseph Cohn 1892-1953. In: Biographical Memoir. National Academy of Sciences , Washington 1961 (PDF, 2.1 MB)
• Cohn, Edwin Joseph , in: Encyclopaedia Judaica , 1972, Volume 5, Col. 688

Web links

• Edwin Joseph Cohn at the Encyclopaedia Britannica (britannica.com)
• John T. Edsall : Edwin Cohn. In: Red Gold - the epic story of blood (pbs.org) ( Memento from January 1, 2015 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present (PDF, 274 kB) at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org); Retrieved September 3, 2012
2. ^ Past Recipients - The Passano Foundation, Inc. (No longer available online.) In: passanofoundation.org. Archived from the original on February 9, 2016 ; accessed on February 9, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Edwin J. Cohn at the American Philosophical Society (amphilsoc.org); Retrieved September 3, 2012