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
Melanin-concentrating hormone as part of the immune response. More research is needed to fully determine and understand any relationship between MCH and possible immune responses in skin. MCH was initially discovered in the teleost fish; it was found to help determine the fish's skin color. Later, a mammalian version of MCH was discovered in rats, where most of the functions and localizations are conserved across mammalian species. Melanin-concentrating hormone Melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) is a cyclic 19-amino acid orexigenic hypothalamic peptide originally isolated from the pituitary gland of teleost fish, where it controls skin pigmentation. In mammals it is involved in the regulation