Tadeusz Reichstein Biography

Tadeusz Reichstein was a Polish born Swiss chemist who along with Philip S. Hench and Edward C. Kendall, received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1950. The trio won the coveted award for their discoveries concerning hormones of the adrenal cortex. Reichstein was born into a Jewish family in Poland and migrated to Switzerland as a child. He was educated in Zurich and became interested in chemistry as a school student. After graduating from high school he began studying chemistry at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (E.T.H.) and completed his diploma. After working in the industry for a while he started working on his doctorate under Professor H. Staudinger with whom he would later research on the composition of the flavoring substances in roasted coffee. He researched for many years on the aromatic substances in chicory and published a series of papers on this subject. Eventually he qualified as a lecturer at the E.T.H. In the ensuing years he collaborated with E. C. Kendall and P. S. Hench in their seminal work on the hormones of the adrenal cortex. This research ultimately led to the isolation of cortisone and the discovery of its therapeutic value in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.