title: Historical note: many steps led to the 'discovery' of thyroid-stimulating hormone.
abstract: Finding thyroid-stimulating hormone was a process rather than a circumscribed event, and many talented persons participated over many years. Key early participants were Bennet M. Allen and Philip E. Smith who had the misfortune just prior to World War I of independently and simultaneously starting very similar experiments with tadpoles. This led to a series of back and forth publications attempting to establish priority for finding evidence of a thyrotropic factor in the anterior pituitary. Decades of work by others would be required before sophisticated biochemical techniques would bring us to our modern understanding.
authors.affiliation: Genzyme, a Sanofi company, Cambridge, Mass., USA.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Magner
keywords: Discovery; History of science; Thyroid-stimulating hormone
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