1915-1974

American biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1971 for discoveries concerned with the operation of hormones. Sutherland discovered cyclic AMP and demonstrated that it converts the inactive form of the enzyme phosphorylase to an active form that converts glycogen to glucose. Because cyclic AMP proved to be essential to the actions of several hormones, and affected numerous cellular processes, Sutherland's work served as a unifying concept for the mechanism of hormone action.