It is now known that the hormones of the adrenal gland are essential to controlling many challenges to the human body, from maintaining a proper balance between water and salt to responding to stress. Tadeus Reichstein is one of those responsible for this knowledge; Edward Kendall and Philip Hench also played an important role in these efforts, and the three men shared the 1950 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. Reichstein's work has had effects throughout medicine--in the treatments of Addison's disease and rheumatoid arthritis, for example, and in the understanding of the fundamental biochemical processes of steroid hormone metabolism.
The eldest son of engineer Gustava Reichstein and his wife, Isidor, Reichstein was born on July 20, 1897, near Warsaw in Poland. After moving first to Kiev in the Ukraine and then to Berlin, the family settled in Zürich and became Swiss citizens. Tadeus attended the Eidgenössiche Technische Hochshule and graduated in 1920 with a chemical engineering degree. He worked briefly in a factory, then returned to the Eidgenössiche Technische Hochshule where he earned his doctorate in organic chemistry in 1922.
For several years thereafter Reichstein continued to work with his doctoral advisor, Hermann Staudinger, who would later win the 1953 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Reichstein's early work focused on identifying and isolating the chemical species in coffee that give it its flavor and aroma. This interest in plant products was to remain with Reichstein throughout his career. He had an early success when he discovered how to synthesize the newly discovered compound ascorbic acid (vitamin C). He published this method in 1933, and later that year Reichstein developed a second method of synthesis which is still widely used in the commercial production of this dietary supplement.
Isolates and Identifies Adrenal Cortical Hormones
In 1934, Reichstein began work on what he originally believed to be a single hormone produced by the cortex or outer layers of the adrenal glands. He soon realized, however, that the adrenals were producing a milieu of active substances. His work began with 1,000 kilograms (more than a ton) of adrenal glands that had been surgically removed from cattle. His first stage of purification resulted in one kilogram (about 2.2 pounds) of biologically active extract. He established that the extract was biologically active by injecting it into animals whose adrenal cortices had been removed; if the compound was active it replaced what was missing as a result of the operation and allowed the animal to survive. The next stage of purification reduced the kilogram of extract to 25 grams (less than one ounce), only about one-third of which proved to be the critical hormone mixture. Instead of one hormone, this sample contained no fewer than twenty-nine distinct chemical species.
Reichstein isolated the twenty-nine species and then individually examined them. He identified the first four which were found to be biologically active, and later synthesized one of them. It was also Reichstein who demonstrated that these compounds were all steroids. Steroids are a group of chemicals which share a particular structure of four linked carbon-based rings; other important compounds having steroid structure include the sex hormones, cholesterol, and vitamin D.
Synthesizes Steroid Hormones
Reichstein built on his earlier work with plant extracts to synthesize the steroid hormones. He and his colleagues developed several different methods to this end, though a process that used an animal waste product (ox bile) proved to be the most economical. One of the most important syntheses that Reichstein accomplished was that of aldosterone, which controls both water balance and sodium-potassium balance in the body. Aldosterone has been widely used in medical practice. Reichstein's work was also critical to the eventual syntheses of desoxycorticosterone, which for many years was the preferred treatment for Addison's disease, and cortisone, which is used for treating rheumatoid arthritis. It was principally for this latter accomplishment that Reichstein shared the 1950 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Reichstein moved to the University of Basel in 1938 where he was appointed director of the Pharmaceutical Institute; in 1946 he became head of the organic chemistry division. Here he turned his attention to plant glycosides, a group of compounds with wide-ranging biological effects. They are the basis for a number of widely used drugs, and one of these, digitalis, has proven useful in controlling the heart rate. Reichstein was able to identify both the plants and the parts of the plants that contained glycosides, and his contributions were critical for initiating many botanical studies. He was one of the first researchers to realize the value of the tropical rain forests to the pharmaceutical industry. His work has also been pivotal in the field of chemical taxonomy, where the identities of plants are determined through their chemical composition--a method which has a higher degree of certainty than identification through visible characteristics. This technique has had broad applications in the development of both natural insecticides and drugs.
Reichstein was presented with an honorary doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1947. He received the Marcel Benoist Award in 1947, the Cameron Award in 1951, and a medal from the Royal Society of London in 1968. He is a foreign member of both the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences.
Reichstein married Henriette Louise Quarles van Ufford in 1927, while still at the Eidgenössiche Technische Hochshule. They had one daughter. He retired from his academic posts in 1967, but continued to work in the laboratory until 1987. He died on August 1, 1996, in Basel, Switzerland, at the age of 99.
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