DAME Henker Carl Peter (Dam Henrik Carl Peter)

(1895-1976), born February 21, 1895 in Copenhagen. He studied at the Polytechnic Institute in Copenhagen and the University of Copenhagen. In 1934 he defended his thesis on the biochemistry. In 1920-1923 he taught chemistry at the Agricultural and veterinary school, in 1923-1941 - biochemistry at the University of Copenhagen. In 1940-1941 Dam taught courses in the United States and Canada in 1941 he emigrated to the United States, where he worked in the medical school of the University of Rochester (pc. New York) (1942-1945), then at Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York (1945-1948). In 1946 he returned to Denmark. In 1956 headed the biochemistry department of the Danish Institute for Research on fat.
The main works are devoted to the lady biochemical properties of vitamins and sterols. Researchers found that hemorrhagic lesions of the skin and muscles from chickens that are on the lean diet, linked to the lack of substance in their diet, which he named vitamin K (from the word 'coagulation'). This vitamin was discovered, in particular, in liver tissues of animals, indicating that its mechanism of action. Found that the liver enzyme involved in coagulation (coagulation) of blood in the absence of vitamin K it does not work, and the whole system collapse fails. In 1928-1930 Dam has developed methods for isolation and purification of vitamin K, showed the way to its application in medicine (stop bleeding, surgery, treatment of diseases of the liver). In addition, he showed that the absence of vitamin E in the diet of animals causes muscular dystrophy. Dam died in Copenhagen 17 April 1976.