1943 Henrik Carl Peter Dam (1895 - 1976) Denmark Polytechnic Institute. Copenhagen, Denmark
Edward Adelbert Doisy (1893 - 1986) USA Saint Louis University , St. Louis, MO, USA
    For their discovery of vitamin K

    Dam and associates showed in chicken a nutritional deficiency characterized by hemorrhage and increased clotting time. Almost a decade later, he and the American citizen Doily, separately working, isolated from alfalfa a fat-soluble substance that prevented this disorder and was designated as vitamin K.
    Doisy and his associates also isolated vitamin K2, a variant form of vitamin K, and the sex hormones estrone, estriol and estradiol.

1944 Joseph Erlanger (1874 - 1965) USA Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA
Herbert Spencer Gasser (1888 - 1963) USA Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, New York, NY, USA
    For their discoveries relating to the highly differentiated functions of single nerve fibres

    Erlanger's research into nerve function was the result of a profitable scientific association with Gasser, one of his students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. By 1922, they were able to amplify the electrical responses of a single nerve fiber and translate it to a graphic trace by the use of a cathode-ray oscilloscope. By this method, Erlanger and Gasser found that the fibers of a nerve conduct impulses at different rates, depended on the thickness of the fiber, and that each fiber had a different threshold of excitability. They also found that different fibers transmitted different kinds of impulses, represented by different types of waves.

1945 Sir Alexander Fleming (1881 - 1955) Great Britain. London University, London
Sir Ernst Boris Chain (1906 - 1979) Great Britain. Oxford University Lord Howard Walter Florey (1898 - 1968) Great Britain. Oxford University
    For the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases

    In 1921 Fleming identified an isolated lysozyme, an enzyme found in certain animal tissues and secretions such as tears and saliva, that exhibited antibiotic therapy. Seven years later, while working with Staphilococus bacteria, he noticed a bacteria free circle around a mold growth (spores of penicillium notatum) that was contaminating the bacterial culture. He found a substance in the mold that prevented growth of the bacteria even when it was diluted 800 times. Fleming called it penicillin.
    Fleming shared the Nobel Prize with Ernest Boris Chain and Howard Walter Florey, who both continued the line of investigation, purified and tested the penicillin and made it commercially available. These three investigators were the pioneers of antibiotic therapy.

1946 Hermann Joseph Muller (1890 - 1967) USA. Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana
    For the discovery of the production of mutations by means of X-ray irradiation

    Muller studied the processes and frequencies of mutations and this enabled him to form a picture of the arrangements and recombination of genes and later led to his experimental induction of genetic mutations through the use of X rays.
    He demonstrated that mutations are the result of chromosome chain braking and gene alterations.
    He promoted public awareness of the danger of radiation to future generations and became actively involved in discussions on the relaxed processes of natural selection. He made a controversial suggestion that sperm of gifted men be frozen and preserved as part of a purposeful program of eugenics for future generations.

1947 Carl Ferdinand Cori (1896 - 1984) USA. Washington University, St. Louis, MO
Gerty Theresa Cori (1896 - 1957) USA. Washington University, St. ouis, MO
    For their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen

Bernardo Alberto Houssay (1887 - 1971) Argentina. Institute for Biology and Experimental Medicine, Buenos Aires
    For his discovery of the part played by the hormone of the anterior pituitary lobe in the metabolism of sugar

    Carl and Gerty Cori were American biochemists, husband and wife team who discovered the activated intermediate, glucose-1-phosphate, known as the Cori ester, which represents the first step in the conversion into glucose of the animal storage carbohydrate glycogen. Later, they identified the enzyme responsible for catalyzing the glycogen-Cori ester reaction and described the Cori cycle, postulating that liver glycogen is converted to blood glucose that is reconverted to glycogen in the muscles, where its breakdown to lactic acid provides the energy for muscle contraction. They also determined the role of epinephrine and insulin in glucose metabolism.
    Gerty Theresa Cori became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology.

Bernardo Alberto Houssay
    During his extensive experimental research, Houssay induced diabetes in dogs by removing their pancreas. In these animal models, he found that excision of the adenohypophysis, greatly relieved the symptoms of the disease and made the animals sensitive to insulin. Following this observation, he injected pituitary extracts into normal animals and they became diabetic by increasing the amount of sugar in the blood. He demonstrated with this findings that pituitary hormones regulated the level of blood sugar.
    Appointed professor of physiology and director of the Physiological Institute at the University of Buenos Aires, Houssay was one of the 150 Argentine educators dismissed from their posts by the 1943 military coup of General Perón. Houssay founded and directed the Institute of Biology and Experimental Medicine, a leading physiological research center. His book Human Physiology was translated to many languages and for more than a decade was the basic treatise of physiology for students and a consultant book around the word.

1948 Paul Hermann Müller (1899 - 1965) Switzerland. Laboratory of the J.R. Geigy Dye-Factory Co. Basel, Switzerland
    For his discovering of the toxic effects of DDT on insects with its chemical derivatives

    A research chemist at the JR Geigy Company, Basel, Muller began his career with investigation of dyes and tanning agents. In 1935 he began his search for an ideal insecticide with potent toxicity for the greatest number of insects, and minimal effects on plants and animals. This research lead him to synthesize de diclorodiphenyl-tricholoroethane or DDT. In 1944 DDT stopped for the first time a winter epidemic of thypus carried by lice in the city of Naples.

1949 Walter Rudolf Hess (1881 - 1973) Switzerland. Zurich University, Zurich
    For his discovery of the functional organization of the interbrain as a coordinator of the activities of the internal organs

    Originally an opthalmologist, Hess turned to the study of physiology at the University of Bonn. In that institution, he worked in the field of the autonomic nervous system. Hess stimulated or destroyed determined areas of the central nervous system in animals, and for this purpose he devised specific fine electrodes. By this method, he discovered that the medulla oblongata and the diencephalon particularly at the hypothalamus were the centers of the autonomic system. He mapped the control centers for each function.

1950 Edward Calvin Kendall (1886 - 1972) USA. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN
Tadeus Reichstein (1897 - 1996) Switzerland. Basel University, Basel Philip Showalter Hench (1896 - 1965) USA. Mayo Clinic, Rochester , MN
    For their discoveries relating to the hormones of the adrenal cortex, their structure and biological effects

    Kendall isolated the active constituent thyroxine of the thyroid hormone. He identified glutahtione, an important molecule involved in redox mechanisms. His most important research was the isolation from the adrenal cortex of the cortisone hormone.
    Hench observed that pregnant women had a relief of arthritis. In search of the antiarthritic substance, he and Kendall discovered cortisone and succesfully applied it in rheumatic disease.
    Reichstein's research on steroids, paralleled those of Kendall. He called cortisone, substance F. He also synthesized ascorbic acid.