Harry Steenbock

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Harry Steenbock.

Harry Steenbock (born August 16, 1886 in Charlestown , Wisconsin , † December 25, 1967 in Madison , Wisconsin) was an American biochemist . He worked for over 50 years at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and researched fat-soluble vitamins , especially vitamin A and vitamin D , as well as related deficiency diseases . In 1924 he showed that the vitamin D content in foods increased through exposure to UV light and had the method patented for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), which he and the university founded .

Life

Harry Steenbock was born on August 16, 1886 on his parents Henry and Christine Steenbock's farm in Charlestown, Calumet County , Wisconsin . Harry was the second child and had a sister two years older than him. His parents had taken over the farm in 1883 from Henry's father Johannes Steenbock, who emigrated from Itzehoe in Schleswig-Holstein to the United States in the 1850s . When he was three years old, his parents sold the farm and moved to Chilton , where his father ran a saloon for several years . He then bought another farm near New Holstein , where the children went to a one-class school . Harry Steenbock followed his sister to Chilton High School in 1901 , which he graduated after three years in 1904. By chance, his father got an offer for his farm in the same year. Since his son did not want to continue this later, his father accepted the offer and the family moved to Madison after the sale , where the siblings attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison from autumn 1904 . In 1908 Harry Steenbock graduated here as a Bachelor of Science in agricultural sciences .

His interest in chemistry was aroused during his undergraduate studies and he subsequently went to the Department of Agricultural Chemistry at the university, where he got a job as a research assistant under Edwin B. Hart and obtained his master’s degree by 1910 and then started doing a thesis in 1916 PhD in animal nutrition with Hart . During this time he also studied with Elmer McCollum , who came to Madison in 1907, and between 1912 and 1913 he studied at Yale University with Lafayette B. Mendel and at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biochemistry in Berlin with Carl Neuberg . Harry Steenbock later became professor of biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and worked here for over half a century into old age; he died in 1967 at the age of 81.

Harry Steenbock married Evelyn Carol Van Donk on March 6, 1948, who had studied at the University of Wisconsin-Stout and obtained her master's degree in the Department of Agricultural Chemistry in Madison. She then worked with Steenbock before the outbreak of World War II and was at Lederle Laboratories in Pearl River , New York during the war years . His wife died in 1992 at the age of 87.

Researches

Harry Steenbock's research focused on fat-soluble vitamins , especially vitamin A and vitamin D , and the related deficiency diseases . With Edward Mellanby he discovered that fats (especially butter) contain a substance necessary for normal growth (vitamin A, which is essential for life), which has been known as the fat-soluble growth vitamin. In 1919 he presented results on the relationship between vitamin A content and the yellowing of food. He then developed the hypothesis that the yellow pigment is converted into an active form in the body, which was confirmed ten years later by Thomas Moore at the University of Cambridge , when he showed that β-carotene was converted into retinol in the liver of rats becomes. The publication of the discoveries marked the beginning of a series of over 16 years and 42 papers by Harry Steenbock in the Journal of Biological Chemistry under the title Fat Soluble Vitamins (or later Vitamins ).

The worldwide research on vitamin A and the assumed deficiency diseases based on it showed a mixed picture of the possible causes and treatment methods in the 1910s and early 1920s. It was shown that foods and liver extracts containing vitamin A, such as cod liver oil , promoted the growth process and prevented or cured night blindness and xerophthalmia , but also had a positive effect on the bone disease rickets . Suitable methods of destroying vitamin A retained the effect on rickets, which led to the conclusion that another fat-soluble vitamin - at that time still called anti-rachitic factor - was concluded. In addition, it has long been known that sunlight can cure rickets and recent studies with UV light have led to the same results, even without vitamin-rich food. In 1924, Steenbock showed that the content of this anti-rachitic factor (vitamin D) in foods increased through exposure to UV light and had the method patented. However, he did not want to become a private beneficiary of the patents and founded the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) together with the University of Wisconsin – Madison . By expiring in the mid-1945s, the WARF patents raised $ 14 million, and by 2007 the University of Wisconsin – Madison received $ 900 million from the WARF for research funding.

Awards and honors

Publications (selection)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Howard A. Schneider: Harry Steenbock (1886-1967): A Biographical Sketch . In: The Journal of Nutrition. Vol. 103, No. 9, 1973, pp. 1233-1247, here pp. 1235-1237.
  2. ^ Howard A. Schneider: Harry Steenbock (1886-1967): A Biographical Sketch . In: The Journal of Nutrition. Vol. 103, No. 9, 1973, pp. 1233-1247, here pp. 1237 f., 1247.
  3. ↑ Alumna wills $ 875,000 to UW-Stout. The Milwaukee Journal, June 14, 1994. Retrieved August 19, 2014.
  4. ^ Howard A. Schneider: Harry Steenbock (1886-1967): A Biographical Sketch . In: The Journal of Nutrition. Vol. 103, No. 9, 1973, pp. 1233-1247, here p. 1246.
  5. ^ Otto Westphal , Theodor Wieland , Heinrich Huebschmann: life regulator. Of hormones, vitamins, ferments and other active ingredients. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1941 (= Frankfurter Bücher. Research and Life. Volume 1), p. 54 f.
  6. ↑ Chris Bates: An appreciation: Thomas Moore. In: Proceedings of the Nutrition Society. Vol. 58, 1999, pp. 751-752.
  7. ↑ George Wolf: A history of vitamin A and retinoids. In: The FASEB Journal. Vol. 10, No. 9, 1996, pp. 1102-1107.
  8. ^ Howard A. Schneider: Harry Steenbock (1886-1967): A Biographical Sketch . In: The Journal of Nutrition. Vol. 103, No. 9, 1973, pp. 1233-1247, here p. 1240 f.
  9. ^ Howard A. Schneider: Harry Steenbock (1886-1967): A Biographical Sketch . In: The Journal of Nutrition. Vol. 103, No. 9, 1973, pp. 1233-1247, here pp. 1243-1246.
  10. ^ Richard D. Semba: The Vitamin A Story: Lifting the Shadow of Death. S. Karger, Basel 2012, pp. 94–99.
  11. ^ Frances Rachel Frankenburg: Vitamin Discoveries and Disasters: History, Science, and Controversies. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, CA 2009, pp. 96-109.
  12. ↑ member entry of Harry Steenbock at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on 22 June 2016th
personal data
SURNAME Steenbock, Harry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American biochemist
DATE OF BIRTH August 16, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Charlestown , Wisconsin , USA
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1967
Place of death Madison , Wisconsin , USA