John Jacob Abel the position of chair of the department until he retired at the age of 75 in 1932. Ever since his early years in Europe, Abel showed great interest in isolating pure form of internal gland hormones. The first work that led to his international reputation as a pharmacologist and biochemist was the isolation of epinephrine from adrenal medulla. However, he was only able to isolate a monobenzoyl derivative of epinephrine. While he was improving his processes on decomposing the benzoyl derivative to obtain salts of epinephrine using saponification, a Japanese chemist J. Takamine, who had visited his lab, was able
John Jacob Abel the first four years, but he continued to guide the scientists in his lab to unravel more and more about the structure of insulin molecule. Despite his great dedication to experimentation work, Abel's historical significance is certainly not restricted to his research work. He was also the founder of a number of influential scientific journals. As more and more research was conducted in the field of biochemistry, Abel realized the importance of having a platform that allowed scientists all around the world to publish their work and report on their findings. He therefore asked his friend Dr. C. A. Herter,