Background
Vincent Du Vigneaud was born on May 18, 1901, in Chicago, Illinois. He was the son of Alfred Joseph Du Vigneaud, an inventor and machine designer, and Mary Theresa O'Leary.
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Vincent Du Vigneaud was born on May 18, 1901, in Chicago, Illinois. He was the son of Alfred Joseph Du Vigneaud, an inventor and machine designer, and Mary Theresa O'Leary.
Du Vigneaud attended public schools in Chicago, graduating from Carl Schurz High School in 1918. Du Vigneaud entered the University of Illinois at Urbana in 1918, graduating in 1923 with a B. S. in organic chemistry. He studied biochemistry with Professors W. C. Rose and H. B. Lewis, becoming intensely interested in the field. He began his research activities as an undergraduate under the tutelage of Professor C. S. Marvel with whom he continued to study for his M. S. , completed in 1924. His thesis research, which involved an attempt to synthesize a drug having the effects both of local anesthesia and pressor activity, set him on his lifelong interest in the relationship between chemical structure and biological function. He received the Ph. D. from the University of Rochester in 1927. From 1927 to 1929 he received a number of postdoctoral fellowships: at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (National Research Council Fellowship) with John Jacob Abel of the Department of Pharmacology, focusing on the study of insulin, in 1927; the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Dresden, Germany, with Max Bergmann (the most renowned of Emil Fischer's students), pursuing research on peptides and amino acids, particularly the amino acids cysteine and cystine from which the sulfur of insulin is derived, in 1928; the University of Edinburgh Medical School with George Barger in 1928; and University College, London, with Sir Charles Robert Harington also in 1928.
Showing an early avid interest in science, Du Vigneaud and his young high school friends, working in the laboratory which he set up in his basement, experimented with gunpowder, tried to grow supersized rats using glandular extracts, and investigated techniques of taxidermy with cats, the latter inquiry being frowned upon by his parents as might be expected.
In 1924 he spent six months at the Jackson Laboratories of E. I du Pont de Nemours and Company in Wilmington, Delaware. From 1924 to 1925, Du Vigneaud was an assistant biochemist at Philadelphia General Hospital, where he was exposed to the clinical side of biochemistry, and at the Graduate School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked with W. G. Karr. He was invited by John R. Murlin in 1925 to join his endocrinology and metabolism department at the newly opened University of Rochester School of Medicine, which stressed the importance of the physiological approach to medical research.
Du Vigneaud's doctoral research demonstrated that the amino acid cystine was the source for the disulfide in insulin. Du Vigneaud's early research set the course for his subsequent pathbreaking work on sulfurcontaining compounds, particularly biotin, penicillin, and the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin.
Upon returning to the United States in 1929, Du Vigneaud joined the physiological chemistry faculty at the University of Illinois where W. C. Rose was serving as departmental chairman. Granted exceptional professionall atitude in his assignment, he taught biochemistry, directed graduate studies, and carried on his research. An offer came in 1932 from George Washington University School of Medicine to serve as a full professor in biochemistry and chairman of the department. He eagerly accepted the post, which afforded him the opportunity to organize the teaching program as well as a long-range research program on the chemistry and metabolism of sulfur compounds, on insulin, and on posterior pituitary hormones.
In 1938 he was made professor and head of the biochemistry department at Cornell Medical College in New York City. In collaboration with Donald Melville and Klaus Hofmann at Cornell and a team of researchers at Western Reserve University School of Medicine led by Paul Gyorgy, Du Vigneaud discovered in 1940 that both vitamin H and coenzyme R were identical to the vitamin biotin. Under his direction a new technique was developed for isolating this very scarce substance from liver, which was known to be rich in vitamin H.
After continuing the research, on October 9, 1942, his group reported the structure of biotin. On Novemebr 8, 1946, Du Vigneaud and his colleagues announced their production of a synthetic penicillin (penicillin G). This monumental achievement rendered unnecessary reliance on the tedious, living-mold process for producing penicillin and made possible the synthesis of other analogues of penicillin. These synthetic drugs offered an alternative to individuals allergic to natural penicillin and provided a means to combat bacteria resistant to the natural product.
In 1950, Du Vigneaud delivered the Messenger lectures at Cornell University, which were subsequently published in book form in 1952 as A Trail of Research in Sulfur Chemistry and Metabolism and Related Fields.
In October 1953 he reported the successful synthesis of oxytocin. The hormone, produced by the posterior pituitary gland, is responsible for uterine contractions at childbirth and for the stimulation of mother's milk. The landmark accomplishment was the first synthesis of a polypeptide hormone (composed of two or more amino acids). Du Vigneaud's laboratory also achieved the isolation and synthesis of vasopressin, an antidiuretic hormone likewise secreted by the posterior pituitary gland. The test-tube forms of oxytocin and vasopressin were shown to be as effective as their natural counterparts, and various analogues of both hormones were also synthesized.
In 1967, Du Vigneaud relinquished his post at Cornell Medical School but remained active as a professor of chemistry at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, until 1975. Du Vigneaud was a distinguished visiting lecturer at many universities throughout the world and served as a trustee of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University). From 1958 to 1960 he was chair of the biochemistry section of the National Academy of Sciences. He died in White Plains, New York. Beyond his own world-class achievements in biochemistry, Du Vigneaud mentored many students and researchers who went on to make outstanding contributions in their own right.
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Du Vigneaud championed close cooperation in biochemical research between scientists and clinicians. He believed that the research chemist was best able to contribute to difficult biochemical challenges, such as the synthesis of penicillin, when permitted to engage in fundamental, pioneering research. In essence, Du Vigneaud was characterizing the kind of unfettered research environment that had allowed him to utilize best his own prodigious talents.
Du Vigneaud was a member of Alpha Chi Sigma, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Harvey Society and the American Society of Biological Chemistry.
Du Vigneaud was a rather tall man, with sparse gray hair, and a trim moustache.
On June 12 of 1924 Du Vigneaud married Zella Zon Ford; they had two children.