John Jacob Abel

Who was John Jacob Abel?

John Jacob Abel was an influential American biochemist and pharmacologist.

Born to George M. and Mary Abel near Cleveland, Ohio, he graduated with a B.A. in 1883 from the University of Michigan, where he studied with Henry Sewall. Abel received a M.D. at Strasburg in 1888. In 1891 he founded and chaired the first department of pharmacology in the United States at the University of Michigan. In 1893, he went on to chair the pharmacology department at Johns Hopkins University. In 1897, he was the second to isolate epinephrine, also known as adrenaline, although the extracts he produced have been shown to be mostly an inactive metabolite and the first pure extracts were produced by the Japanese Jokichi Takamine who patented the formulation under the name adrenalin. He later formulated the idea of the artificial kidney and in 1914 he isolated amino acids from the blood.

He spent years unsuccessfully searching for the pituitary hormone, unaware that he was in fact looking for several hormones. In 1926, he reported the isolation and crystallization of insulin, though this announcement was met with considerable scepticism and not generally accepted for many years.