Born on November 13, 1893
Biochemist Edward A. Doisy won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1943 for his work determining the chemical structure of Vitamin K, which plays a key role in helping our blood to clot, thereby stopping bleeding. An injection of Vitamin K is now standard for all newborns. In the 1920s, he completed his Ph.D. in chemistry at Harvard University and taught at Washington University before joining the faculty of St. Louis University School of Medicine. There he helped create the Department of Biochemistry and chaired it for 41 years until 1965. Edward A. Doisy also isolated and characterized the estrogen female sex hormones, opening up the field of steroid hormone research.
