In 1950, Kendall was awarded the 1950 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Swiss chemist Tadeus Reichstein and Mayo Clinic physician Philip S. Hench, for their work with the hormones of the adrenal gland. His Nobel lecture was titled "The development of cortisone as a therapeutic agent". Kendall also isolated thyroxine, a hormone of the thyroid gland, and worked with the team that crystallized glutathione and identified its chemical structure.