Stanley Cohen (biochemist)

Stanley Cohen (born November 17, 1922) is an American biochemist and Nobel Prize Laureate in Physiology and Medicine (1986).

He received his bachelor's degree in 1943 from Brooklyn College, where he had double-majored in chemistry and biology. After working as a bacteriologist at a milk processing plant to earn money, he received his M.A. in zoology from Oberlin College in 1945. He earned a Ph.D. from the department of biochemistry at the University of Michigan in 1948.

Working with Rita Levi-Montalcini (co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in 1986) at Washington University in St. Louis in the 1950s, Cohen isolated nerve growth factor and then went on to discover epidermal growth factor. He continued his research on cellular growth factors after moving to Vanderbilt University in 1959. His research on cellular growth factors has proven fundamental to understanding the development of cancer and designing anti-cancer drugs.

Cohen also received the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University together with Rita Levi-Montalcini in 1983 and the National Medal of Science in 1986.