{{Short description|American biochemist (1901–1962)}} {{cs1 config|name-list-style=vanc}} {{More footnotes needed|article|date=September 2009}} {{Infobox scientist |name = Conrad Elvehjem |image = Conrad Elvehjem (1).jpg |image_size = |caption = Elvehjem in 1961 |birth_date = {{birth date|1901|5|27}} |birth_place = McFarland, Wisconsin, U.S. |death_date = {{death date and age|1962|7|27|1901|5|27}} |death_place = Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. |field = Biochemistry |work_institutions = |alma_mater = University of Wisconsin (PhD) |doctoral_advisor = |doctoral_students = |known_for = Nutrition<br />niacin |spouse = Constance W. Elvehjem |influences = |influenced = |prizes = Willard Gibbs Award <small>(1943)</small><br />Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award <small>(1952)</small> |religion = |footnotes = |signature = }} '''Conrad Arnold Elvehjem''' (May 27, 1901{{spaced ndash}}July 27, 1962) was internationally known as an American biochemist in nutrition and a university president. In 1937 he identified two vitamins, nicotinic acid, also known as niacin, and nicotinamide,<ref name="Elvehjem_1937">{{cite journal |vauthors=Koehn CJ, Elvehjem CA |title=Further studies on the concentration of the antipellagra factor |journal=Journal of Biological Chemistry |volume=118 |issue=3 |pages=693–699 |date=1937-05-01 |doi=10.1016/S0021-9258(18)74475-X |doi-access=free }}</ref> which were deficient directly in human pellagra, once a major health problem in the United States.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/elvehjem-conrad.pdf |title=Conrad Arnold Elvehjem – Biographical Memoir |publisher=National Academy of Sciences |author1=R. H. Burris |author2=C. A. Baumann |author3=Van R. Potter |accessdate=August 18, 2015}}</ref> Collectively, nicotinic acid and nicotinamide are termed vitamin B<sub>3</sub> and are now understood to be precursors of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. He was also president of the University of Wisconsin.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1962-07-27 |title=Conrad A. Elvehjem, UW President, Dead |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/herald-times-reporter-conrad-a-elvehjem/194344905/ |access-date=2026-03-28 |work=Herald-Times-Reporter |pages=1 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>
==Biography== [[File:Distillation column used to isolate niacin by Prof. Conrad Elvehjem, University of Wisconsin College of Agriculture, c. 1937 - Wisconsin Historical Museum - DSC03373.JPG|thumb|right|Distillation column used to isolate niacin by Prof. Conrad Elvehjem, c. 1937]] Conrad Elvehjem, the son of Norwegian emigrants to Wisconsin,<ref name="Obit">{{cite news |title=Conrad Arnold Elvehjem: Scientist and Educator with a Common Touch |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/54877749/conrad-elvehjem-1901-1962/ |newspaper=Wisconsin State Journal |date=July 28, 1962 |page=4 |via = Newspapers.com |accessdate=July 7, 2020}} {{Open access}}</ref> was born in McFarland, Wisconsin. He progressed through the secondary schools and the University of Wisconsin, where he received his PhD in 1927<ref name="Obit"/> with mentor E.B. Hart for his studies of the importance of copper in iron-deficiency anemia. A National Research Council fellowship permitted a year at Cambridge University in England. Elvehjem began teaching in agricultural chemistry at the University of Wisconsin in 1923, and became a full professor in 1936.<ref name="Obit"/> He became chairman of the biochemistry department in 1944 and dean of the graduate school in 1946, at 45 years of age. He served as dean of the graduate school until he became the university's 13th president in 1958.<ref>''[http://www.laskerfoundation.org/awards/1952_c_description.htm Conrad Elvehjem For distinguished contributions to biochemical and nutrition research] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160224194902/http://www.laskerfoundation.org/awards/1952_c_description.htm |date=2016-02-24 }}'' (Lasker Foundation, 2009)</ref>
Picking up on the work of Joseph Goldberger, he found that nicotinic acid cured black tongue in dogs, an analogous disease to pellagra. In the previous year, Elvehjem and his colleague Carl J. Koehn had found that a filtrate factor from a liver extract could cure diet-induced pellagra in chicks. That filtrate extract was designated as the vitamin G fraction, after the late Goldberger. To confirm their findings in dogs, they induced black tongue in these animals with the Goldberger diet of yellow corn, before supplementing the diet with the vitamin G fraction. Elvehjem and his colleagues later were able to isolate and identify nicotinamide and nicotinic acid from vitamin G as the curative factors for black tongue in dogs. He also contributed greatly to the identification of vitamin B complex and was co-author of more than 780 scientific papers on biochemistry and nutrition.
Elvehjem commented frequently on nutrition as it affects both scientist and layman. "Vitamins should be obtained from natural foods if possible", he cautioned. "Generally they are cheaper, more palatable, and in better balance with other factors when taken in this form." He acknowledged the value of synthetic vitamins in treating deficiency diseases, but warned that their use should be temporary.<ref>{{cite news|title=C.A. Elvehjem, 61 Biochemist, Dead|work=New York Times|page=14|date=Jul 28, 1962}}</ref>
Elvehjem's first graduate student (in 1931) was noted nutritionist Fredrick John Stare (1910–2002) who later founded and chaired the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he served until 1976.<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://jn.nutrition.org/content/134/5/1007.long|title=Fredrick John Stare (1910–2002)|publisher= The American Society for Nutritional Sciences|author=D. Mark Hegsted|journal=The Journal of Nutrition|year=2004|volume=134|issue=5|pages=1007–1009|doi=10.1093/jn/134.5.1007|pmid=15113936|accessdate=August 18, 2015|doi-access=free}}</ref>
Elvehjem met his wife Constance W. Elvehjem when she was an undergraduate at UW Madison. She died in 1999 at the age of 94 after many years supporting the museum and the Madison community. Elvehjem was stricken with a heart attack at his desk on the morning of July 27, 1962, at the age of sixty-one and died within the hour.
==Awards and honors== * United States National Academy of Sciences, member – 1942<ref>{{Cite web |title=Conrad Elvehjem |url=http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/deceased-members/20001144.html |access-date=2023-03-17 |website=www.nasonline.org}}</ref> * Willard Gibbs Medal – 1943 * American Philosophical Society, member – 1947<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Conrad+Elvehjem&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2023-03-17 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref> * Albert Lasker Award for clinical medical research – 1952 * American Academy of Arts and Sciences, member – 1953<ref>{{Cite web |title=Conrad Arnold Elvehjem |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/conrad-arnold-elvehjem |access-date=2023-03-17 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |date=9 February 2023 |language=en}}</ref>
==Legacy== Elvehjem's name appears on university awards, buildings, a town park, and a local elementary school in Madison, Wisconsin,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://lvm.madison.k12.wi.us/about|title=Elvehjem Elementary School – About us|publisher=Conrad J. Elvehjem Elementary School|accessdate=August 18, 2015|archive-date=April 7, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160407091759/https://lvm.madison.k12.wi.us/about|url-status=dead}}</ref> and a neighbourhood on the South-East Side of Madison nearby and its associated neighbourhood association. His name was formerly on the Elvehjem Art Center (later the Elvehjem Museum of Art), until the museum received a $20 million donation from Simona and Jerome A. Chazen (both UW–Madison alumni), and renamed itself the Chazen Museum of Art. The original building housing the museum retains the Elvehjem name.
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Other sources== * {{Cite journal |date=August 2002|last1=Simoni|first1=RD|last2=Hill|first2=RL|last3=Vaughan|first3=M |title=Copper as an essential nutrient and nicotinic acid as the anti-black tongue (pellagra) factor: the work of Conrad Arnold Elvehjem |volume=277|issue=34|pages=e22|journal=The Journal of Biological Chemistry|issn=0021-9258|pmid=12185207|doi=10.1016/S0021-9258(20)70109-2|doi-access=free}} * {{Cite journal |date=February 1974|last1=Elvehjem|first1=CA|last2=Madden|first2=RJ|last3=Strong|first3=FM|last4=Woolley|first4=DW|author-link4=Dilworth Wayne Woolley |title=The isolation and identification of the anti-black tongue factor |volume=32|issue=2|pages=48–50|journal=Nutrition Reviews|issn=0029-6643|doi=10.1111/j.1753-4887.1974.tb06263.x|pmid=4274128|s2cid=7197859 }} * {{Cite journal |date=August 1991|last1=Harper|first1=AE|last2=Elvehjem|first2=CA |title=Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume 158, 1955: Importance of amino acid balance in nutrition |volume=49|issue=8|pages=233–4|journal=Nutrition Reviews|issn=0029-6643|pmid=1956589|doi=10.1111/j.1753-4887.1991.tb03034.x}} * {{Cite journal |year=1990|last1=Burris|first1=RH|last2=Baumann|first2=CA|last3=Potter|first3=VR |title=Conrad Arnold Elvehjem: May 27, 1901 – July 27, 1962 |volume=59|pages=135–67|journal=Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences|pmid=11616156}} * {{Cite journal |last1=Todd|first1=W.R.|last2=Elvehjem|first2=C.A.|last3=Hart|first3=E.B|date=April 1980 |title=Zinc in the Nutrition of the Rat |volume=38|issue=4|pages=151–4|journal=Nutrition Reviews|issn=0029-6643|doi=10.1111/j.1753-4887.1980.tb05879.x|pmid=7010227}} * {{Cite journal |date=May 1971|last1=Kline|first1=OL|last2=Baumann|first2=CA |title=Conrad Arnold Elvehjem--a biographical sketch (1901–1962) |volume=101|issue=5|pages=571–7|journal=The Journal of Nutrition|issn=0022-3166|doi=10.1093/jn/101.5.569|pmid=4930952}}
==External links== {{Commons category|Conrad Elvehjem}} * [http://www.elvehjemneighborhood.org/ Madison, Wisconsin neighborhood is named for him complete with eponymous park] * [http://www.library.wisc.edu/archives/?s=Conrad+Elvehjem University of Wisconsin–Madison dedication] * {{Find a Grave|18490681}} {{S-start}} {{S-aca}} {{Succession box| title=President of the University of Wisconsin | before= Edwin Broun Fred | after = Fred Harvey Harrington | years=1958–1962}} {{S-end}} {{University of Wisconsin–Madison leaders}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elvehjem, Conrad}} Category:1901 births Category:1962 deaths Category:20th-century American biochemists Category:American people of Norwegian descent Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences alumni Category:Leaders of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Category:Recipients of the Lasker–DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award Category:People from McFarland, Wisconsin Category:Vitamin researchers Category:20th-century American academics Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society