Vincent du Vigneaud was a pioneering American biochemist born in Chicago, Illinois on May 18, 1901. He received his undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of Illinois before earning his PhD from the University of Rochester in 1927. Following postdoctoral research at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, he held faculty positions at the University of Illinois and George Washington University School of Medicine. In 1938, he joined Cornell University Medical College as Chair of the Department of Biochemistry, a position he held until his retirement in 1967, establishing one of the most influential biochemistry research programs of the twentieth century.
Dr. du Vigneaud's most significant achievement was becoming the first scientist to synthesize a protein hormone, specifically oxytocin, in 1953. His meticulous research isolated and characterized the chemical structures of two critical pituitary hormones: vasopressin, which regulates blood pressure, and oxytocin, which stimulates uterine contractions and milk secretion. He discovered that oxytocin is a cyclic octapeptide containing a disulfide bond, a remarkably small structure compared to most proteins. This groundbreaking work demonstrated that complex biological molecules with physiological activity could be synthesized in the laboratory, revolutionizing the field of biochemistry and opening new avenues for pharmaceutical development.
His synthesis of oxytocin represented a major methodological advance in biochemistry, accomplished using meticulous techniques before the development of modern solid-phase synthesis methods. Du Vigneaud's research extended beyond peptide hormones to include seminal work on sulfur-containing compounds such as insulin, the vitamin biotin, and penicillin, for which his team achieved the first synthesis in 1946. He published nearly 500 research papers throughout his career and summarized his major contributions in the influential 1952 book A Trail of Research in Sulfur Chemistry and Metabolism and Related Fields. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1955, du Vigneaud's work continues to inspire generations of biochemists and remains foundational to modern peptide synthesis and hormone research.
