Donald MacCorquodale, Biochemist

Donald W. MacCorquodale, a biochemist who was on a research team that shared the 1943 Nobel Prize in Medicine for work on the isolation and synthesis of Vitamin K, has died at age 87.

MacCorquodale, who died Feb. 5 at his home in Winnetka, headed biochemical research at Abbott Laboratories in North Chicago from 1942 to 1963, where he was involved in the early cultivation of penicillin.

He was a researcher at St. Louis University School of Medicine under Edward A. Doisy, who was named the winner of the Nobel Prize for work on Vitamin K. A team of Danish researchers shared the prize.

At the time, the vitamin had been long recognized as an excellent clotting agent, especially for women in childbirth and after operations, but was not readily available.

A Chicago native and a graduate of the University of Illinois, MacCorquodale retired in 1963 after publishing more than 70 scientific papers.