Henrik Dam

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Henrik Dam

Carl Peter Henrik Dam (born February 21, 1895 in Copenhagen , Denmark ; † April 17, 1976 there ) was a Danish physiologist , biochemist and Nobel Prize winner .

Life

Dam graduated from the Polytechnic Institute in Copenhagen in 1920 with a degree in chemistry and then went on to work as an assistant and chemistry lecturer at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Copenhagen, and in 1923 as an assistant and biochemistry lecturer at the Physiological Laboratory of the Department of Biochemistry and Physiology at the University of Copenhagen . In 1925 he studied microchemistry in Graz with Fritz Pregl and in 1928 became assistant professor, in 1929 associate professor at the Institute for Biochemistry at Copenhagen University. With a thesis on the biological significance of sterols , he received his Ph.D. in biochemistry.

1932-1933 Dam went to the continuation of work on the metabolism of steroids to Freiburg to Rudolph Schönheimer , 1935 Paul Karrer ( Zurich ).

During a lecture tour in Canada and the USA from 1940 to 1941, Denmark was occupied by German troops (April 1940). 1942-1945 he worked as a researcher at the University of Rochester ( Rochester (New York) ) and then at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University ). In his absence he was offered a professorship for biochemistry at the Polytechnic Institute in Copenhagen , but Dam did not return to Copenhagen until the end of the war in 1946. 1956–1962 he was the head of biochemistry at the Danish Fat Research Institute.

Dam published 315 specialist articles and was a member of numerous scientific associations.

Scientific importance

He discovered vitamin K while working on sterol metabolism in chickens in Copenhagen . When the animals were fed a cholesterol- free ration, massive bleeding (haemorrhages) began. As a result, he investigated isolation and cleaning (together with Karrer), the chemical and physical properties and the biological function of the newly discovered vitamin. In 1941 he also published his research findings on vitamin E .

For the discovery of vitamin K, he and Edward Adelbert Doisy received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1943 .

1960 he was awarded the German Society for Fat Research the Wilhelm Normann medal.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Carl Peter Henrik Dam: Some Studies on Vitamin E. Copenhagen 1941.
  2. ↑ DGF Awards. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on November 30, 2010 ; accessed on March 12, 2010 (English). 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dgfett.de
personal data
SURNAME Dam, Henrik
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dam, Henrik Carl Peter (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish biochemist, received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1943
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Copenhagen
DATE OF DEATH April 17, 1976
Place of death Copenhagen