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Concept

Thyroxine

A molecular structure resembling a virus with a central sphere and four smaller spheres extending outward, symbolizing thyroxine, a hormone isolated by Edward Kendall in 1914.

The principal hormone of the thyroid gland, isolated in pure crystalline form by Edward Kendall on Christmas Day 1914 at the Mayo Clinic. A tyrosine molecule decorated with four iodine atoms, it sets the basal metabolic rate of nearly every cell in the body. Too little produces lethargy, weight gain and cold intolerance; too much, the opposite. Iodised salt, introduced in the 1920s, is essentially a public-health thyroxine programme.

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