Abstract
PROF. C. R. HARINGTON, professor of chemical pathology in the University of London, and director of the Graham Research Laboratories at University College Hospital Medical School, who is to succeed Sir Henry Dale as director of the National Institute for Medical Research, became well known through his work on the active principle of the thyroid gland, which he started with Prof. George Barger in Edinburgh and continued in University College, London. Thyroxine had been isolated by E. C. Kendall but not in sufficient quantities for accurate chemical work. With various collaborators Harington devised an improved method of isolation, determined its structure, synthesized it, resolved it into its optical isomers, showed that the natural isomer was lsevo-rotatory, synthesized a number of allied substances some of which had similar pharmacological actions, isolated from the thyroid gland a simple polypeptide which differed from thyroxine in its absorption from the intestine, and showed that di-iodotyrosine was also present in the thyroid. These different aspects of work on a new active principle are generally shared among many different laboratories, and it is remarkable that one man could do so much.
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Prof. C. R. Harington. F. R. S. Nature 149, 633 (1942). https://doi.org/10.1038/149633c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/149633c0