Earl Wilbur Sutherland Jr.

Earl Wilbur Sutherland Jr. (November 19, 1915 – March 9, 1974) was an American pharmacologist and biochemist born in Burlingame, Kansas.

Sutherland was born on November 19, 1915, in Burlingame, Kansas.

The second youngest of six children, he was raised by his mother, Edith M. Hartshorn, and his father, Earl W. Sutherland.

Though his father, who was originally from Wisconsin, had attended Grinnell College for two years, he ultimately led an agrarian lifestyle that took him to both New Mexico and Oklahoma before settling down in Burlingame to raise a family.

Edith, a Missouri native, had some training in nursing at what was called a "ladies college".

To provide for the family, Sutherland's father ran a dry goods store, where he gave each of his children working jobs.

Sutherland began fishing at the age of five, and this became a pastime that he enjoyed for most of his life.

As a high school student, Sutherland played and excelled in several sports, including tennis, basketball, and football.

In 1933, at the age of 17, Sutherland enrolled in Washburn College in Topeka, Kansas and began the pursuit of a Bachelor of Science degree.

In order to pay for tuition, he worked throughout his undergraduate years as a medical staff assistant at a local hospital.

Sutherland graduated in 1937, at the age of 21.

He was then accepted to Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where he developed a strong mentorship with Carl Ferdinand Cori.

In 1940, while studying at the Washington University School of Medicine, Sutherland had his first encounter with research as an assistant in pharmacology in the laboratory of Carl Ferdinand Cori, who won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1947 for his discovery of the mechanism of glycogen metabolism.

Under Cori's guidance, Sutherland conducted research on the effects of the hormones epinephrine and glucagon on the breakdown of glycogen to glucose.

In 1942, Sutherland graduated with a Doctor of Medicine.

In 1942, he worked as an intern at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.

After receiving his medical degree from Washington University in 1942, Sutherland served as a World War II army physician.

He returned to Washington University in St. Louis in 1945, where he continued to do research in Cori's Laboratory.

Sutherland accredits his decision to pursue a research career, as opposed to entering the medical profession, to his mentor Cori.

Sutherland held various teaching titles during his time at the Washington University School of Medicine, including instructor in pharmacology (1945–46), instructor in biochemistry (1946–50), assistant professor in biochemistry (1950–52), and associate professor in biochemistry (1952–53).

In 1953, Sutherland moved to Cleveland a position as a professor of pharmacology and chairman of the department of pharmacology at the school of medicine at Case Western Reserve University.

There, he collaborated with Theodore W. Rall, also a professor of pharmacology, who was to become a lifelong research partner.

Together, they conducted further research on the mechanism of hormone action at the molecular level.

During his ten years at Case Western Reserve University, Sutherland made several ground-breaking discoveries that led to the identification of cyclic adenosine monophosphate, or cyclic AMP, and its role as a secondary messenger.

In 1963, Sutherland became professor of anatomy at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville.

His position allowed him to devote more time to his research.

He continued his work on cyclic AMP, receiving financial support from the Career Investigatorship awarded to him by the American Heart Association in 1967.

Sutherland won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1971 "for his discoveries concerning the mechanisms of the action of hormones", especially epinephrine, via second messengers, namely cyclic adenosine monophosphate, or cyclic AMP.

He held his teaching title at Vanderbilt University until 1973.

In 1973, after spending 10 years at Vanderbilt University, Sutherland moved to Miami, Florida, where he joined the faculty at Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine as a distinguished professor of biochemistry.

He continued to be involved in novel research about adenosine monophosphate and guanosine monophosphate, co-authoring four papers in 1973 alone.

While working in Cori's laboratory, Sutherland, with the help of his co-workers, made several discoveries concerning the mechanism of glycogen metabolism that, years later, led him to his discovery of the biological activity of cyclic AMP.

Cori's laboratory had previously established the basic mechanism of glycogen metabolism, for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Sutherland helped to identify the importance of liver phosphorylase (LP) in the process of glycogenolysis.

Of the three basic enzymes involved in glycogenolysis, he found that LP was rate-limiting, meaning that the progression of glycogen metabolism is dependent on this enzyme.

LP would become the subject of his research for the next several years, and it was through experimentation on LP and hormone interaction that his most renowned discovery was made.

After identifying the importance of LP, Sutherland moved his research efforts to Western Reserve University.

There, he worked in collaboration with Ted Rall, Walter D Wosilait, and Jacques Berthet to publish a series of papers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, "The Relationship of Epinephrine and Glucagon to Liver Phosphorylase", which was released in four parts.

These four papers document the purification of LP and the analysis of several of its properties.

First, it was determined that the enzymatic activity of LP depends on the addition or removal of a phosphate group, a process called phosphorylation.