Henrik Dam

Carl Peter Henrik Dam was born on February 21, 1895, in Copenhagen. Graduating in chemistry from the Polytechnic Institute, he joined the physiological laboratory of the University of Copenhagen, investigating sterol metabolism in chicks fed cholesterol-depleted diets.

Dam observed that chicks developed severe hemorrhages that could not be cured by administering purified cholesterol or vitamins A, C, or D. In 1935, he announced the discovery of a new fat-soluble dietary factor essential for blood clotting, which he named Koagulations-Vitamin (Vitamin K). He shared the 1943 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Edward Adelbert Doisy, whose work isolated and determined the chemical structure of Vitamin K.