William H. Daughaday was a researcher in endocrinology whose work helped connect growth hormone to circulating growth-promoting factors, including insulin-like growth factor 1. He became the founding chief of Washington University's Metabolism Division in 1951 and later led its diabetes and endocrine research centers. The division's institutional history also credits his work on corticosteroid-binding globulin and early measurements of growth hormone and prolactin.[ref]
William H. Daughaday, MD by Washington University in St. Louis. institutional history, division leadership and scientific contributions
With W. D. Salmon Jr., Daughaday investigated why blood serum could stimulate sulfate incorporation in isolated cartilage. The resulting somatomedin hypothesis made an important conceptual separation: a hormone released by one organ can act through another circulating signal. Daughaday's 2000 retrospective describes the historical experiments behind that interpretation; later identification of insulin-like growth factor 1 gave a molecular identity to an important part of this activity.[ref]
Growth hormone axis overview: somatomedin hypothesis by William Daughaday. historical account of the serum-factor experiments
The distinction remains useful when interpreting experiments: observing a growth hormone-dependent response in a whole animal does not show that growth hormone acts directly on the responding tissue.
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