Nobel Prize Recipient. Edward Doisy, an American biochemist, received world-wide recognition after being awarded the 1943 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for, according to the Nobel Prize committee, his discovery of vitamin K." His find impacted medical treatment with its into antihemorrhagic properties. He received this coveted award, sharing it jointly with German biochemist Henrik Dam. Doisy received four nominations for the Nobel candidacy. With the unstable political environment of Europe during World War II, no Nobel Prizes were offered in the years of 1940, 1941 and 1942. He received his 1943 Nobel Prize during the December of 1944 presentation ceremony, which was held in New York City instead of Stockholm. Born Edward Adelbert Doisy, one of four sons of a traveling salesman, his parents were Edward and Adel Doisy. Attending the University of Illinois, he earned a A.B. Degree in 1911, a M.S. Degree in 1916 and from Harvard University, his PhD in 1920. While at Harvard University, he was assistant in biochemistry until 1917. During World War I, he served in the Sanitary Corps of the United States Army until 1919. From 1919 until 1923 he was promoted from Instructor, to Associate, and then Associate Professor at Washington University School of Medicine. In 1923 he became Professor of Biochemistry at St. Louis University School of Medicine in Missouri, and within a year, was appointed Director of the Department of Biochemistry. His research, along with his colleagues, was mainly biochemical studies of the sex hormones, using pig ovaries. At the St. Louis School of Medicine, he worked in collaboration with Edgar Allen on the refinement of the vaginal cytology and succeeded in isolating three sex hormones: estrone, estradiol, and estriol. His research improved the methods used for the isolation and identification of insulin. He also made important contributions to the knowledge of antibiotics and blood buffer systems. He studied vitamins K1 and K2. In 1939 both Dam and Doisy, researching independently but coming to the same result, isolated Vitamin K from alfalfa. Taking the next step, Doisy's team established the distinction between vitamin K1 which they isolated from alfalfa, and vitamin K2, isolated from fish meal, which has an action similar to that of vitamin K1, but has a slightly different constitution. At this point, vitamin K was synthesized in 1939. On top of everything else done in 1939, he co-authored the textbook, "Sex and Internal Secretions." He published several papers in professional journals. He received many medals and awards, was a member of many learned scientific societies, and received honorary doctorate degrees from a number of facilities including Yale University and the University of Paris in France. In 1955 his Department was renamed the Edward A. Doisy Department in his honor. He retired in 1965. He married Alice Acker, and the couple had four sons. After Alice's death in 1964, he married Margaret McCormick. His son Edward A. Doisy Jr. became a biochemist professor and his grandson, Edward A. Doisy, III earned a medical degree in ophthalmology. His family made generous donations with the money earned from his numerous discovery royalties to a research center and library. After his death at age of 94 from heart disease, his widow, Margaret, dedicated the Doisy College of Health Sciences.