Essential Endocrinology and Diabetes. Richard I. G. Holt

1946 James Batcheller Sumner, John Howard Northrop and Wendell Meredith Stanley Discovery that enzymes can be crystallized and prepared in a pure form 1947 Carl Ferdinand Cori, Getty Theresa Cori (neé Radnitz) and Bernardo Alberto Houssay Discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen 1950 Edwin Calvin Kendall, Tadeus Reichstein and Philip Showalter Hench Discoveries relating to the hormones of the adrenal cortex, their structure and biological effects 1955 Vincent du Vigneaud Biochemically important sulphur compounds, especially for the first synthesis of a polypeptide hormone 1958 Frederick Sanger Structures of proteins, especially that of insulin 1964 Konrad Bloch and Feodor Lynen Discoveries concerning the mechanism and regulation of cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism 1964 Dorothy Hodgkin X‐ray crystallography, a method used to determine the three‐dimensional structures of molecules, including insulin 1966 Charles Brenton Huggins Discoveries concerning hormonal treatment of prostatic cancer 1969 Derek HR Barton and Odd Hassel Development of the concept of conformation and its application in chemistry 1970 Bernard Katz, Ulf von Euler and Julius Axelrod Discoveries concerning the humoral transmitters in the nerve terminals and the mechanism for their storage, release and inactivation 1971 Earl W Sutherland Jr Discoveries concerning the mechanisms of the action of hormones 1977 Roger Guillemin, Andrew V Schally and Rosalyn Yalow Discoveries concerning peptide hormones in the production in the brain and the development of radioimmunoassay from peptide hormones 1979 Allan M Cormack and Godfrey N Hounsfield Development of computer‐assisted tomography 1982 Sune K Bergström, Bengt I Samuelson and John R Vane Discoveries concerning prostaglandins and related biologically active substances 1985 Michael S Brown and Joseph L Goldstein Discoveries concerning the regulation of cholesterol metabolism 1986 Stanley Cohen and Rita Levi‐Montalcini Discoveries of growth factors 1992 Edmond H Fischer and Edwin G Krebs Discoveries concerning reversible protein phosphorylation as a biological regulatory mechanism 1994 Alfred G Gilman and Martin Rodbell Discovery of G‐proteins and the role of these proteins in signal transduction in cells 2003 Peter Agre and Roderick MacKinnon Discovery of water channels, and the structural and mechanistic studies of ion channels 2003 Paul Lauterbur and Sir Peter Mansfield Discoveries concerning magnetic resonance imaging 2010 Robert G Edwards Development of in vitro fertilisation

Figure 1.2 The sites of the principal endocrine glands. While the stomach, kidneys and duodenum are shown, a multitude of different hormones are secreted right the way along the gastrointestinal tract.

Traditionally, endocrinology has centred on specialized hormone‐secreting organs (Figure 1.2), largely founded on the ‘endocrine postulates’ of Edward Doisy (Box 1.3). While the focus of this textbook remains on these organs, virtually all tissues make hormones of some description or, equally relevant, modulate the action of hormones from other sites. All of these different aspects are important for a complete appreciation of endocrinology and its significance.

Box 1.3 The ‘Endocrine Postulates’: Edward Doisy, St Louis University School of Medicine, USA, 1936

       The gland must secrete a substance (an ‘internal secretion’)

       Methods of detecting the secretion must be available

       The purified substance (the hormone) must be recoverable from gland extracts

       The hormone must be capable of isolation for its structure to be determined and for synthesis

      To this could be added:

       The hormone must act on specific target cells via a receptor such that excess or deficiency causes a specific phenotype

The role of hormones

Endocrine (i.e. hormone‐secreting) cells may exist as distinct glands or be located as single cells within other organs, such as the gastrointestinal tract (Table 1.2). The chapters in Part 2 are largely organized on this anatomical basis.

Hormones act by binding to specific receptors, either on the surface of or inside the target cell, to initiate a cascade of intracellular reactions, which frequently amplifies the original stimulus and generates a final response. These responses are altered in hormone deficiency or excess: for instance, GH deficiency leads to short stature in children, while excess causes over‐growth (either gigantism or acromegaly; Chapter 5).

Table 1.2 The endocrine organs and their hormones^*

Gland	Hormone	Molecular characteristics