Edwin J. Cohn †

Some Personal History and Reflections from the Life of a Biochemist

“…With Cohn's remarkable gift for drawing many people of varied talents and interests into the same orbit, this grew into a major en terprise which occupied a considerable group of us for a decade. I have already told most of the story in two biographical articles on Edwin Cohn (12,13) and here I will elaborate only on a few points. We realized from the fundamental papers of E. Q. Adams and Niels Bjerrum that amino ac ids and peptides must be electrically charged molecules at all pH values cations at low pH, anions at high pH, and dipolar ions (zwitterions) at some intermediate pH value, at which their net charge was zero.…”

“…Cohn had the vision to see what could be done by large-scale plasma fractionation, and the driving and aggressive energy to get the necessary Government support, to bring together large groups of scientists and clinicians working in a common cause, and to enlist seven major pharmaceutical firms in the large-scale production of plasma fractionation products by methods worked out in the Pilot Plant at Harvard Medical School. Cohn himself told the story in detail (22), I have already told it more briefly in two articles concerning him (12,13), and have re viewed at length (23) the results that were achieved by the larger group of workers during those hectic years. My own share in this large enterprise chiefly involved the uses of fibrinogen and fibrin.…”