Kendall, Edward Calvin (1886-1972), an American biochemist, won the 1950 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine, with Philip S. Hench and Tadeus Reichstein, for his discovery of cortisone and his research on the hormones of the adrenal glands. He announced the isolation of cortisone, originally called compound E, in 1936, and first used it on humans in 1948 (see Cortisone ). He isolated thyroxine, a hormone of the thyroid gland, in 1914.
Kendall was born in South Norwalk, Connecticut. He was graduated from Columbia University in 1908, and he received a Ph.D. degree in 1910. Kendall taught at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine from 1914 to 1951.