Oskar Wintersteiner

Oskar Paul Wintersteiner (November 15, 1898 – August 15, 1971) was an Austrian-born biochemist and organic chemist who spent most of his career in the United States, mainly at Columbia University and the Squibb Institute for Medical Research. His research focused on the chemistry and purification of hormones, antibiotics, and plant alkaloids.

With Willard M. Allen, Wintersteiner isolated crystalline progestin fractions from rabbit corpus luteum, including a compound later identified as progesterone. With J. D. Dutcher, he isolated crystalline d-tubocurarine from curare prepared from Chondrodendron tomentosum, establishing its botanical source in certain curare preparations. His work on penicillin during World War II led to the award of a Citation of Merit from President Harry S. Truman. Wintersteiner received the William H. Nichols Medal and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1950.

Early life and education Wintersteiner was born November 15, 1898, in Bruck an der Mur, Austria. He received a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Graz in 1921, where he worked with Nobel Prize–winning chemist Fritz Pregl. He stayed at Graz as an instructor in medical chemistry and organic microanalysis until 1926.

Progesterone and steroid hormones

Together with Willard M. Allen, Wintersteiner fractionated extracts from rabbit corpus luteum (the endocrine structure in the ovaries) by fractional crystallization. They separated the biologically active hormone from the much larger quantity of inactive material; they designated two active crystalline fractions as compounds B and C and these showed progestational activity. Their compound B was subsequently identified as the substance now called progesterone.

Wintersteiner and Pfiffner were among the researchers who isolated Compound E, later known as cortisone. In animal tests, they found that the compound had little or no ability to prolong survival after removal of the adrenal glands, although later work showed that it strongly affected muscular performance, and thus Wintersteiner and Pfiffner missed the primary biological activity of the compound.

Penicillin and other antibiotics

At Squibb during World War II, Wintersteiner worked on projects related to national needs and the war effort. He purified penicillin and, through microanalysis, showed that it contained sulfur.

Curare alkaloids

In 1943, Wintersteiner and J. D. Dutcher, then working at the Squibb Institute for Medical Research, isolated d-tubocurarine from curare prepared from the identified species Chondrodendron tomentosum. Their method isolated crystalline d-tubocurarine with a good yield and they identified it with the compound previously isolated (in 1935) by Harold King. Their research was part of Squibb's investigation of curare preparations; Squibb had introduced Intocostrin, a purified and standardized curare extract whose activity was due principally to d-tubocurarine, in 1939.

Honors

Citation of Merit from President Harry S. Truman for wartime research on penicillin.

Wintersteiner was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1950 by Erik Jorpes and in 1952 by Karl Sune Detlof Bergström. The 1950 nomination cited his work on adrenocortical hormones.

Later life and death

Wintersteiner lived in Princeton, New Jersey, until his retirement. He died after a long illness at his home in Graz, Austria, on August 15, 1971.