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Fred Conrad Koch was born on May 16, 1876 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. He was the son of Frederick Koch and Louise Henrietta (Fischer) Koch. His father, a native of Gudensberg, Germany, settled in Chicago in 1865; his mother was born in Elmhurst, Illinois. The Koch family, which included three daughters, Gertrude, Adelheid, and Carlotte, moved to Elmhurst in 1882.
He graduated from Oak Park High School and received his Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1899, followed a year later by an Master of Science from the same institution. His next two years were spent as an instructor in chemistry at the University of Illinois. In 1909, feeling the need for more fundamental training, he won a graduate fellowship at the University of Chicago; he studied under Albert P. Mathews in the department of physiological chemistry. He received Doctor of Philosophy in 1912, for a thesis entitled, "On the Nature of the Iodine-containing Complex in Thyreoglobulin. "
Koch took a research chemist position with Armour and Company in Chicago.
The next twenty-nine years were spent on the staff of the University of Chicago, where he advanced from instructor in 1912 to full professor in 1923.
In 1926, after having served as acting chairman since 1919, Koch was elected chairman of the department of physiological chemistry and pharmacology and served in that capacity until his retirement in 1941. Upon retirement he was named Frank P. Hixon distinguished service professor emeritus and thereupon took a position with Armour and Company as director of biochemical research.
In collaboration with Lemuel C. McGee and others Koch prepared a potent extract from the lipid (fatty) fraction of bulls' testicles, thus obtaining a male hormone in a crude form for the first time. Injection of small quantities of the extract into capons caused accentuation of secondary sex characteristics, notably growth of the comb. Koch and Thomas F. Gallagher made comb growth the basis for bioassay of testicular hormone preparations; the "capon unit" being "the amount which, injected per day for 5 days, produces an average of 5 mm. increase in length and height of the combs on at least five brown leghorn capons. "
In addition to numerous research papers, he was the author of a manual, Practical Methods in Biochemistry (1934), the fourth edition of which was published in 1944; a fifth edition (1948) was coauthored by a departmental colleague, Martin E. Hanke.
Koch was editor of Archives of Biochemistry and in 1936 became a member of the committee on endocrinology, National Research Council. After his retirement in 1941, Koch continued his research projects vigorously at Armour and Company until a stroke in 1946 dictated a decreased pace.
Koch developed methods for the extraction of male hormones from human urine. He also worked on blood chemistry and, with his second wife, was the first to observe the conversion of heat-treated cholesterol to provitamin D in 1925. Koch is also credited with several inventions of laboratory equipment, the best known of which is the Koch pipette. Among his other apparatus were a stopcock pipette with reservoir, a modified van Slyke apparatus for determination of amino nitrogen, and a microburette. Koch had great influence as a teacher of biochemists. Forty students received Doctor of Philosophy under his direction, many of them going on to positions of distinction in research institutions. He received numerous honors--Harvey Society lecturer, Julius Steiglitz memorial lecturer in 1941, and president of the Association for the Study of Internal Secretions (now the Endocrine Society) from 1937-1938. In 1930 Koch was the American delegate to the Second International Congress for Sex Research in London; in 1935 he was a member of the League of Nations Committee on the Biological Standardization of Sex Hormones, meeting in London; in 1941 he was a delegate to the Pan American Congress on Endocrinology when it met in Montevideo.
Koch was noted in the classroom for clear exposition and emphasis on the quantitative approach to biochemical problems. He was methodical and conservative and known among his friends as a refined person, with good taste and deep consideration for the interests of his students and friends. He spoke thoughtfully and with quiet good humor.
On August 20, 1901, Koch married Bertha Ethel Zink, the daughter of John Tilghman Zink. Koch's first wife died in 1918, and four years later, on September 7, 1922, he married Elizabeth Miller, daughter of Charles Miller of East Chicago. She was also a biochemist. There were no children by either marriage. After their marriage, she became a research associate in pharmacology and pediatrics in the medical college of the University of Illinois, and from 1926 to 1941 was research instructor in biochemistry at the University of Chicago.
