The Danish biochemist Carl Peter Henrik Dam (1895-1976) shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine for his discovery of vitamin K.

Henrik Dam, the son of Emil Dam, an apothecary, was born in Copenhagen on Feb. 21, 1895. He graduated in chemistry at the Polytechnic Institute, Copenhagen, in 1920 and then held two instructor's posts in chemistry and biochemistry. In 1928 he was appointed assistant professor of biochemistry in the University of Copenhagen. In 1929 he was appointed associate professor, and in 1941 professor. In 1934 he graduated as a doctor of science of that university. While holding a Rockefeller Fellowship he worked at Freiburg (1932-1933) and at Zurich (1935).

In 1928 Dam started to work on the cholesterol metabolism of chicks. He fed them a practically sterol-free artificial diet to which vitamins A and D had been added. He proved that, contrary to the current view, chicks could synthesize cholesterol. But he also found that some...