Background
He was born in Copenhagen on February 21, 1895.
He was born in Copenhagen on February 21, 1895.
He was educated at the Polytechnic Institute where he received an M. S. in chemistry in 1920, and at the University of Copenhagen, where he recived a D. Sc.
He was instructor in chemistry at the School of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine from 1920 to 1923; he was instructor in biochemistry from 1923 to 1928, assistant professor from 1928 to 1929, and associate professor from 1929 to 1941 at the University of Copenhagen.
He lectured in the United States and Canada in 1940-1941, during which time he was appointed (in absentia) professor of biochemistry at the Polytechnic Institute.
While holding a Rockefeller Fellowship he worked at Freiburg (1932 - 1933) and at Zurich (1935).
In 1928 Dam started to work on the cholesterol metabolism of chicks.
He fed them a practically sterol-free artificial diet to which vitamins A and D had been added.
He proved that, contrary to the current view, chicks could synthesize cholesterol.
But he also found that some chicks developed internal hemorrhages and delayed blood coagulation.
In 1932 scientists in California claimed that this disease was due to the absence of vitamin C from the diet, but Dam showed that it was not cured by the addition of ascorbic acid (that is, pure vitamin C) to the diet.
He also demonstrated that a diet rich in cereals and seeds prevented the disease, and in 1934 he announced that it was due to the absence from the diet of a hitherto unrecognized factor.
He then found this factor to be fat-soluble, and in 1935 he announced that it was a new vitamin, which he designated vitamin K.
The Californian workers rapidly confirmed his findings.
In 1939 pure vitamin K was first synthesized-from green leaves-by Dam, Paul Karrer, and their coworkers, and independently by Edward Adelbert Doisy and Louis Fieser.
In 1940 Doisy prepared from putrefied fish meal a similar vitamin, which he called K2, and the original vitamin was thereafter called K1.
By 1939 Dam had shown that the blood of chicks fed on a vitamin K-free diet was very deficient in prothrombin, which is normally present and essential to clotting.
He established a method of estimation, defined the vitamin K unit, and found the best sources to be green leaves and tomatoes.
In 1940, while Dam was lecturing in the United States, Germany invaded Denmark.
As he was unable to return home until after the war, he worked during the war years at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratories, at the University of Rochester, and at the Rockefeller Institute.
He shared the Nobel Prize with Doisy in 1943.
In 1937 Dam showed that the absence of vitamin E from the diet of chicks caused excessive exudation of plasma from the capillaries.
He subsequently showed that the diet had also to be deficient in certain fatty acids.
He discovored vitamin K and its role in human physiology. In addition to his Nobel Prize, Dam's many other honors included the Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1943 for joint work with Edward Doisy work in discovering vitamin K and its role in human physiology.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1943 for joint work with Edward Doisy work in discovering vitamin K and its role in human physiology.
Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
