Background
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. in biochemistry in 1934. Dr. Dam 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. From 1942 to 1945 he was senior research associate at the School of Medicine of the University of Rochester (New York), and in 1945 became an associate member of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City. From June 1946 on, he lived in Copenhagen. In 1956 he became head of the Biological Division of the Danish Public Research Institute.
Dr. Dam's chief investigations involved research in vitamins, nutrition, blood coagulation and lipids (fatlike substances insoluble in water). For his part in the discovery of Vitamin D he received the 1939 Christian Bohr award in physiology from the University of Copenhagen and shared with Dr. Edward A. Doisy the 1943 Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine. Among memberships he held were those in the American Institute of Nutrition, the American Society of Biological Chemists, the Biologisk Selskab (Biological Society) and the Kemisk Forening (Chemical Society) of Copenhagen, and the SociétéSociete Chimique of Zurich. He contributed many articles to scientific journals of the United States and Europe. Dr. Dam died in Copenhagen on Apr. 17, 1976.