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Robert Donald Hoskin Heard, chemist, biochemist (born 13 February 1908 in St. Thomas, ON; died 8 September 1957 in Montreal, QC). Well known for research on the biochemistry of steroid hormones, Heard was largely responsible for the 1944 choice of a Canadian site for the annual prestigious Laurentian Hormone Conference.
Education
R.D.H. Heard obtained his BA and MA (1930) from the University of Toronto. As an 1851 Exhibition Scholar, he studied chemistry and received his PhD (1932) from the University of Manchester in England. After a year at Oxford, he returned to the University of Toronto as a Banting Research Foundation grantee.
Career
His university appointments in biochemistry, at Dalhousie University in 1937 and McGill University in 1942, enabled him to continue his outstanding teaching and research career until his early death in 1957. Heard published many scientific papers with his students and collaborators. He is noted for developing methods for labelling steroid hormones with radioactivity and for using these "tracers" to reveal the pathways of formation and interconversion of ovarian and adrenal hormones.
Did you know?
One of R.D.H. Heard’s graduate students was Bernard Belleau. Belleau is perhaps best known for his discovery of 3TC, a drug used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS.
