Research Highlights 1900 – 1949

1900 – University of Wisconsin–Madison is one of 14 institutions from across the nation to meet in Chicago to discuss graduate education, resulting in the creation of the Association of American Universities.

1904  – The UW–Madison Graduate School is created, with astronomer G.C. Comstock as its director (title changed to dean in 1914). Total graduate student enrollment is 115.

1911 – The Single-grain Experiment demonstrates the importance of trace nutrients (later identified as vitamin) for optimal health. The discovery lays the groundwork for modern nutritional science. The experiment was conceived by Stephen Babcock, overseen by Edwin B. Hart, and assisted by Elmer McCollum, Harry Steenbock and George Humphrey.

1913 – Following out of the nutrition research of Babcock and Hart, experiments performed in the labs of biochemistry professors Davis, Elvehjem, Hart, McCollum and Babcock finds undiscovered components in diets. The researchers demonstrate the existence of vitamins A and B and their roles in nutrition, including the causes of pellagra and beriberi (vitamin B3 (niacin) and B1 (thiamin) deficiency, respectively). These discoveries foster development of vitamin synthesis, helping to eliminate diseases stemming from some vitamin deficiencies. Commemorative historical markers about these and other events can be found throughout the Agricultural and Life Sciences campus (Henry Mall/Babcock Drive area).

1914 – Communication Sciences and Disorders is the first speech pathology department (Dept of Speech Correction, at that time), 1914, and is the first doctoral program in the United States.

1915 – Professors McCollum and Davis isolate a water-soluble substance later to be named vitamin B.

1916 – Cornelia Kennedy, graduate student in biochemistry, is the first to use the letters “A” and “B” for trace nutrients, which establishes a precedent for naming vitamins.

1917 – The Research Committee is formed. Its initial mission was to raise funds and to coordinate national defense research during World War I. The committee grew to one dedicated to providing resources for faculty research.

1920s – Biochemists in the 1920s conducted studies leading to improved understanding of the roles of minerals in animal and human diets. The labs of Professors Hart, Elvehjem, and Steenbock discover that copper, in addition to iron, is necessary for making hemoglobin, a component of blood that carries oxygen from the lungs to tissues, and carbon dioxide from tissues to lungs. This led to the use of copper to treat iron deficiency anemia.

1922 – Sara Stinchfield receives first PHD. in Communicative Disorders in the United States.

1924 – Professor of Agricultural Chemistry Harry Steenbock discovers the process of irradiating food to enrich its vitamin D content. In 1921 E.V. McCollum discovered a substance that cured rickets – vitamin D. The discovery of vitamin D by Steenbock’s lab is a hallmark contribution to science and society made during the university’s history. Steenbock not only discovered vitamin D but also invented a way to produce it and applied the invention eliminate rickets as a major medical problem. Proceeds from the invention were applied in the form of a Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) to support research at UW. WARF contributes approx. $130M annually to support research at the university.

1925 – Professor Harry Steenbock, Graduate Dean Charles Slichter, Agriculture Dean Harry Russell, and a group of UW alumni found The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Steenbock’s vitamin D patents establish a portfolio of inventions and investments used to support and fund additional research by university faculty, staff and students.

1928 – Fermentation methods that lead to large-scale preparation of antibiotics such as penicillin are developed by the labs of Biochemistry Professors W.H. Peterson and M.J. Johnson. Without their work and the work of other scientists at UW–Madison, penicillin could not have been used during World War II in the preparations that it became available. The methods developed by the fermentation group were applied by industry and academic institutions, affecting the entire antibiotic industry. https://www.wispolitics.com/2017/uw-madison-d-day-invasion-was-bolstered-by-uw-madison-penicillin-project

1929 – Edwin B. Hart develops a method for stabilizing iodine in table salt to cure goiter.

1929 – The School of Business establishes the country’s first graduate program in public utilities.

1932 – Animal behaviorist Harry Harlow founds the Harlow Primate Laboratory, including the nation’s first monkey-breeding colony.

1932 – UW Arboretum is founded.

1933 – UW Arboretum begins its first forest plantings.

1933– Farmer Ed Carlson brought to Biochemistry Professor Karl P. Link sweet clover hay that he thought might be involved in the death of his cattle from uncontrollable bleeding. Link’s lab isolates and identifies dicumarol as the anticlotting agent in the spoiled hay. They then synthesized comparable compounds including Warfarin, which is widely used to treat thrombosis and other clotting disorders. It also proved to be a highly effective rodenticide. Compound synthesis was performed by Link, Mark Stahmann, and Miyoshi Ikaw (https://publichistoryproject.wisc.edu/travel-permit-to-madison-wi-for-miyoshi-ikawa-text-description/). The American Chemical Society honored the development of the blood thinner warfarin with the National Historic Chemical Landmark designation in a ceremony at UW–Madison on Oct. 12, 2022.

1934 – UW Arboretum is dedicated.

1934 – Although they may not have anticipated it when the Arboretum was founded, the University of Wisconsin’s Arboretum committee’s foresight resulted in the Arboretum’s ongoing status as a pioneer in the restoration and management of ecological communities. In focusing on the re-establishment of historic landscapes, particularly those that predated large-scale human settlement, they introduced a whole new concept in ecology: ecological restoration — the process of returning an ecosystem or piece of landscape to a previous, usually more natural, condition.

1937 – Conrad Elvehjem leads UW researchers who find that niacin supplementation prevents pellagra, a disease that killed 5,000 people a year at the time.

1937 – Tuition and fees for graduate study are $55 for residents and $255 for nonresidents.

1939 – As a graduate student at UW, Henry Lardy helps make possible the artificial insemination of heifers and cows through his invention of a device that helped preserve semen. Taking a practical approach, Lardy and Professor Paul H. Phillips explore media readily accessible to farmers, eventually discovering buffered egg yolk as a suitable medium for preserving semen. Their work changed the global dairy industry, allowing for relatively easy breeding of highly productive dairy cows.

1940 – Karl Paul Link and graduate assistants Harold Campbell, Ralph Overman, Charles Huebner, and Mark Stahmann first crystalize an anticoagulant substance that will lead to the development of warfarin, a widely used rodenticide and the most prescribed blood thinner in the world for human patients.

1944 – Joseph Erlanger and  Herbert Gasser win the Nobel Prize in Physiology, Medicine for the study of the differentiated functions of individual nerve threads

1945 – WARF files for a patent on warfarin (the patents is granted in 1947).

1948-50 – Graduate School takes over evaluations of applications for graduate study from the registrar. The changes were hailed as being more efficient.

1948 – UW–Madison Scientists Harry Harlow, David Grant and Esta Berg design the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Grant and Berg publish the now famous, patented and trademarked cognitive test in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. The test is used primarily to assess perseveration and abstract thinking, according to the American Psychological Association. It is considered a measure of executive function because of its reported sensitivity to frontal lobe dysfunction. In addition to humans, the test has been used with some animals, including rhesus monkeys in studies at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18874598/