| 1 | Name: | Dr. Henry A. Lardy | |
| Institution: | University of Wisconsin, Madison | ||
| Year Elected: | 1976 | ||
| Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Deceased | ||
| Birth Date: | 1917 | ||
| Death Date: | August 4, 2010 | ||
Henry A. Lardy was the Vilas Professor of Biological Sciences Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He was introduced to biochemical research as an undergraduate at South Dakota State University in 1937. The Experiment Station Chemistry Laboratory employed two or three chemistry majors during their junior and senior years, and he was fortunate to be selected. In his senior thesis research he reported a treatment for selenium poisoning in animals that was successful in treating a human case. In May of 1939 he became a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin and there discovered a medium that permitted sperm storage for 7 - 10 days with retention of motility and fertilizing capacity and made artificial insemination practical. While studying the metabolism of sperm he discovered the uncoupling of oxidative phosphorylation by dinitrophenol. After a year of postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Professor Herman Fischer at the University of Toronto, he returned to the University of Wisconsin as an assistant professor. His research with graduate students involved carbohydrate chemistry and metabolism which led to our proving that the "nonphosphorylating glycolsis" of the Needham school was non-existent. He also discovered that the metabolic function of the vitamin Biotin is to fix carbon dioxide into organic structures. In 1950 the university opened an "Institute for Enzyme Research," and Dr. Lardy was one of two professors designated to conduct research and train students and postdoctoral fellows in the facility. From then until 1988, he supervised the worked of 60 graduate students and more postdoctorate fellows. Their research was summarized in Comprehensive Biochemistry, Vol. 36 (1986) and in a "Reflections" chapter in the Journal of Biological Chemistry 278:3499 (2003). After becoming Emeritus Professor, Lardy's research has dealt with steroids that cause weight loss in obese persons and animals, improve memory and decrease cholesterol. Lardy had continued to be an active member of the university's bioscience community until just months before his death on August 4, 2010 at the age of 92. | |||