Kendall, Edward Calvin

American biochemist (1886–1972)

Kendall, a dentist's son from South Norwalk, Connecticut, studied chemistry at Columbia University where he obtained his PhD in 1910. After working briefly at St. Luke's Hospital in New York from 1911 to 1914, Kendall moved to the Mayo Foundation in Rochester, Minnesota, where from 1921 to 1951 he served as professor of physiological chemistry.

In 1914 Kendall achieved an early success by isolating the active constituent of the thyroid gland. The importance of hormones in the physiology of the body had become apparent through the work of William Bayliss and Ernest Starling on the pancreas. Kendall was able to demonstrate the presence of a physiologically active compound of the amino acid tyrosine and iodine, which he named thyroxin.

Kendall was led from this to investigate the more complex activity of the adrenal gland. This gland secretes a large number of steroids, many of which he succeeded in isolating. Four compounds, labeled A, B, E, and F, seemed to possess significant physiological activity. They were shown to affect the metabolism of proteins and carbohydrates and in their absence animals seemed to lose the ability to deal with toxic substances. It was therefore hoped that some of these compounds might turn out to be therapeutically useful. After much effort sufficient compound A was obtained but, to Kendall's surprise and disappointment, it was shown to have little effect on Addison's disease, a complaint caused by a deficient secretion from the adrenal cortex. Kendall was more successful with his compound E – later known as cortisone to avoid confusion with vitamin E – when in 1947 a practical method for its production was established. Clinical trials showed it to be effective against rheumatoid arthritis. It was for this work that Kendall shared the 1950 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine with Tadeus Reichstein and Philip Hench.

Edward Calvin Kendall (1886-1972), American biochemist and Nobel Prize winner, isolated the hormone thyroxin and played a leading role in the isolation and synthesis of the hormone cortisone.

On March 8, 1886, E. C. Kendall was born in South Norwalk, Conn. He received a bachelor of science degree in 1908, a master of science degree in 1909, and a doctorate in chemistry in 1910 from Columbia University. The following year Kendall was a research chemist with Parke, Davis and Company in Detroit, and from 1911 to 1914 he worked at New York City's St. Luke's Hospital. During these years he was engaged in research on the thyroid gland. In 1914 he succeeded in isolating the thyroid hormone thyroxin. His discovery was reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association for 1915. Also in that year, he married Rebecca Kennedy.

In 1914 Kendall had accepted a position as head of the section of biochemistry at the Mayo Clinic Graduate School in Rochester, Minn., and in 1921 he was named professor of physiological chemistry. At the Mayo Clinic he and his coworkers made important scientific contributions, including studies on oxidation in the animal organism, but Kendall's most significant achievement was the isolation and synthesis of cortisone, a hormone produced by the adrenal cortex.

The adrenal glands had been observed first in the 16th century, and by the 19th century it was suspected that the adrenals were related to certain diseases. In the 1930s several researchers began to study them in an effort to determine what the active substance of the glands was. This proved a very complex problem since the adrenal cortex alone produces a series of closely related hormones. Kendall's research team isolated several of these hormones, including one that was renamed cortisone in 1939.

Kendall's early reports on the isolation of cortisone and other hormones of the adrenal cortex appeared in the Proceedings of the Mayo Clinic (1934) and the Journal of Biological Chemistry (1936). He then guided work toward the synthesis of cortisone, which was accomplished between 1946 and 1948.

Kendall had a major role in the introduction of cortisone for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and rheumatic fever, although Dr. Philip S. Hench of the Mayo Clinic directed the early testing. In 1950 Kendall and Hench shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with Tadeus Reichstein for their work on cortisone. Kendall retired from the Mayo Clinic in April 1951 and became visiting professor in the department of biochemistry at Princeton University. He died on May 4, 1972, in Princeton.

Further Reading

A short sketch of Kendall is in Theodore L. Sourkes, Nobel Prize Winners in Medicine and Physiology (new and rev. ed. 1967). A slightly more detailed biography is in Nobel Foundation, Nobel Lectures in Physiology or Medicine, 1942-1962, vol. 3 (1964), which includes information on the events and discoveries leading to Kendall's work as well as a discussion of the work itself.

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.