Vincent du Vigneaud

Overview

Vincent du Vigneaud (May 18, 1901 – December 11, 1978) was an American biochemist whose laboratory performed the first total synthesis of a peptide hormone — oxytocin — in 1953 and shortly afterward the synthesis of vasopressin. For this work, he was awarded the 1955 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Du Vigneaud's scientific career is a model of the continuous pursuit of a single theme across decades. He began his graduate studies on the sulfur-containing amino acid cystine in the 1920s, and nearly all of his subsequent work concerned sulfur-containing biomolecules — glutathione, biotin, homocysteine, insulin (studied as a model of sulfur chemistry), and ultimately the posterior pituitary peptides.

His approach combined rigorous organic chemistry with collaboration with clinicians and pharmacologists. By the time of the oxytocin synthesis, he had been working on pituitary peptides for more than a decade, and the final synthesis was the culmination of long efforts to establish their amino acid composition, sequence, and disulfide architecture.

Background

Du Vigneaud was born in Chicago and received his bachelor's degree and master's degree from the University of Illinois. He completed his Ph.D. in 1927 at the University of Rochester under the supervision of John Murlin, working on the chemistry of insulin. He held postdoctoral fellowships at Johns Hopkins with John Jacob Abel and in Europe with Max Bergmann, Karl Folkers, and others.

He joined the faculty of George Washington University and then moved to Cornell University Medical College in 1938, where he spent the remainder of his career, eventually chairing the biochemistry department. Cornell's location and resources, together with his connections to pharmaceutical scientists, were critical to the oxytocin and vasopressin work.

Key Contributions

• First total synthesis of a peptide hormone (oxytocin, 1953).
• Synthesis of vasopressin (1954).
• Fundamental work on the chemistry of biotin and transmethylation reactions involving methionine and choline.
• Training a generation of peptide and protein chemists, many of whom went on to lead major laboratories.

Timeline

• 1901: Born in Chicago.
• 1927: Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Rochester.
• 1938: Joins Cornell University Medical College.
• 1942: Elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
• 1953: Oxytocin total synthesis published.
• 1954: Vasopressin synthesis published.
• 1955: Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• 1967: Retires from Cornell.
• 1978: Dies at age 77.

Modern Relevance

Every synthetic peptide hormone in clinical use — from desmopressin to semaglutide — traces back conceptually to du Vigneaud's demonstration that a laboratory-made peptide can exactly reproduce a natural hormone's biological activity. His work helped transform endocrinology and pharmacology and provided a template for later structure-activity studies of peptide hormones.

Du Vigneaud also anticipated, without benefit of modern cloning technology, many of the structural principles that later became obvious from sequence analysis. His careful dissection of oxytocin and vasopressin — two peptides differing by only two residues — anticipated modern medicinal chemistry strategies based on small sequence differences yielding large pharmacological changes. See nobel-prize-oxytocin-synthesis for more on the recognition of this work.

Related Compounds

• Oxytocin
• Vasopressin
• Insulin
• Biotin
• Methionine