- Henrik Dam
Henrik Dam (Full name Carl Peter Henrik Dam) (
February 21 ,1895 –April 17 ,1976 ) was a Danish biochemist and physiologist.He was awarded the
Nobel Prize inMedicine in 1943 for his work in discoveringvitamin K and its role inhuman physiology . His key experiment involved feeding acholesterol -free diet to chickens. The chickens began hemorrhaging and bleeding uncontrollably after a few weeks. Dam isolated the dietary substance needed for blood clotting and called it the "coagulation vitamin", which became shortened to vitamin K.He was born and died in
Copenhagen .He received an undergraduate degree in chemistry from the
Copenhagen Polytechnic Institute in 1920, and was appointed as assistant instructor in chemistry at the School of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine. By 1923 he had attained the post of instructor in biochemistry at Copenhagen University's Physiological Laboratory. He studiedmicrochemistry at theUniversity of Graz underFritz Pregl in 1925, but returned to Copenhagen University, where he was appointed as an assistant professor at the Institute of Biochemistry in 1928, and assistant professor in 1929. During his time as professor at Copenhagen University he spent some time working abroad, and in 1934 submitted a thesis entitled "Nogle Undersøgelser over Sterinernes Biologiske Betydning" (Some investigations on the biological significance of the sterines) to Copenhagen University, and received the degree of Ph.D. in biochemistry.External links
* [http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1943/dam-bio.html Henrik Dam]
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