Conrad Elvehjem

Conrad Arnold Elvehjem (May 27, 1901 to July 27, 1962) was a biochemical researcher who worked at the University of Wisconsin. He worked for years on the emerging field of vitamins, and with his university colleagues discovered in 1937 that niacin, or Vitamin B₃, was able to prevent and cure the disease pellagra. This discovery led to the elimination of pellagra in the United States, which at the time caused thousands of deaths per year. Elvehjem became known as a leading expert in vitamins and health, and later also became President of the University of Wisconsin. His legacy continues in the study of metabolism and how cells produce energy.

Research

Elvehjem joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin in 1930 in the biochemistry department and worked primarily on Vitamin B complex’s trace minerals and components. Elvehjem and his colleagues received praise for their work on trace elements. They also won recognition for work on the role of copper in the formation of hemoglobin in the human body. His later work also exposed the role of metals in nutrition like iron, aluminum, and manganese.

Pellagra

Joseph Goldberger, a doctor who spent decades fighting infectious diseases, was appointed by the United States government in 1914 to work on stopping the scourge of the disease known as pellagra. Through his work, he identified that diet was the cause of the condition but struggled to identify what was missing from sufferers' diets and died in 1927, having not yet found the source.

Elvehjem and his colleagues built on Goldbergers' work, and in the mid-1930s experimented by putting first chicken and then dogs on a diet consisting of all known Vitamin B foods. This diet, developed initially by Goldberger, included yellow corn, casing, and cottonseed oil. The animals quickly developed pellagra, experiencing typical symptoms such as black tongue and lethargy, and were soon near death. However, the animals' health completely recovered once they received small-molecule fractions derived from liver. Dogs treated with the distillation of liver did not experience recurrence of black tongue, had increased energy, and no longer experienced diarrhea.

It was now without a doubt that diets that did not include nicotinic acid and nicotinamide caused pellagra. Testing on humans found a minimal amount of side effects, and after publication, physicians began curing pellagra with liver extract. Further studies by the University of Wisconsin showed a corn-based diet that many Americans then consumed would cause pellagra due to lack of niacin. Years later, scientists built on Elvehjam's work, discovering that niacin is a vitamin form of NAD+. They also found that eukaryotes synthesize NAD+ "de novo," and tryptophan uses the kynurenine pathway. Therefore a tryptophan-poor diet can cause pellagra, and niacin can cure it.

Publication

Elvehjem and colleagues submitted a letter to the editor for the September 1937 issues of the Journal of the American Chemical Society announcing their discovery of pellagra’s source. By 1942, he was a leading authority in the area of nutrition, and counseled people to eat a variety of natural foods to avoid missing out on vitamins, many of which at the time were still unknown. In 1943, Elvehjem won the Willard Gibbs Medal for his contributions to chemistry.

Later life

Elvehjem became involved in the administrative work on the University of Wisconsin’s Madison campus, as well as National Nutrition policy. He became the chair of the Department of Biochemistry in 1944 and became the Dean of the Graduate School as well. Elvehjem later became the President of the University of Wisconsin in 1958, but retained his office in the Biochemistry Department. He continued to work on amino acid imbalance and metabolism.

Legacy

Elvehjem left a significant legacy, and many institutions, as well as prizes, bear his name, such as the Elvehjem Award of the American Institute of Nutrition. Elvehjem's research has led to continued breakthroughs in how the compound NAD+ operates, is produced, and what role it plays in determining the lifespan of living things.