Discovery of Thyroid Hormones

In 1915, Edward Kendall (1886-1972) was the first to isolate thyroxine from the thyroid glands of pigs (Fig. 6.22). [82] From 3,000 kilograms of thyroid glands he obtained by alkaline hydrolysis 33 grams of pure thyroxine. In 1926/27, Sir Charles R. Harington (1897-1972) elucidated the structure of thyroxine, and in 1950, Rosalind Pitt-Rivers (1907-1990) and Jean Roche (1901-1992) simultaneously discovered that by comparison with thyroxine, 3,3 ,5-triiodothyronine was five times more active (Fig. 6.23). 

23 The thyroid hormones belong to a group of approximately 110 known iodine-containing natural products, Q. most of which originate from marine organisms. 

After Enrico Fermi (Fig. 6.24) had described in 1934 the first radioactive isotope of iodine, 1, it became possible to explore the biosynthesis of thyroxine. For the first time, radioiodine enabled as a theranostic agent the diagnosis of thyroid cancer by autoradiography and also its radiologic treatment (Fig. 6.25). 

24 On 2 December 1942, Enrico Fermi (1901-1954) succeeded in carrying out the first nuclear chain reaction with equipment, which had been built in a makeshift laboratory under the grandstands of Chicago s Stagg Field Stadium. 

26 Microscopy of the human thyroid gland. The tissue consists of spheric vesicles (follicular cells), which are surrounded by epithelial cells and store in their colloid-filled lumen thyroid hormones, bound to thyroglobulin. 

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