Leonard, Samuel Leeson

▪ 2008

      American zoologist

born Nov. 16, 1905, Elizabeth, N.J.

died Nov. 11/12, 2007, Ithaca, N.Y.

conducted pioneering hormone research in animals. In the late 1920s he discovered that the female sex hormone estrogen could prevent ovulation in rats, a result that helped lead to the later development of birth-control pills for women. In other research, published in 1931, Leonard and colleagues determined that the ovaries and testes are regulated by two pituitary hormones, follicle-stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone. The findings were later used in developing techniques for in vitro fertilization for humans. In studying the role of sex hormones, he showed how female canaries, which normally do not sing, could be induced to do so when treated with the male hormone testosterone. Leonard earned both an M.S. (1929) and a Ph.D. (1931) in zoology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In 1941 he became an associate professor of zoology at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. He became a full professor at Cornell in 1949 and professor emeritus in 1971, but he continued to teach and conduct research until the late 1980s.

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