Dent , Charles Enrique , 1911-1976 , biochemist

Charles Enrique Dent was born in 1911. Having begun his scientific career as a chemist, Dent qualified in medicine in 1944 and then began to work on disorders of amino-acid metabolism, being an early pioneer of the technique of paper chromatography for the analysis of body fluids. He developed both chromatographic and chemical tests for metabolic disorders and was instrumental in defining a number of new amino acid diseases. Another associated early interest was in metabolic bone diseases such as rickets and osteomalacia. These concerns broadened over his career to include the cause and treatment of many conditions such as hyperparathyroidism, renal stone formation, sarcoidosis and various malabsorption syndromes. A continuing interest in genetics accompanied the study and treatment of all these conditions as many were shown to be hereditary. Several are also associated with mental deficiency.

An outline of Dent's life follows:
1911: born in Burgos, Spain (family normally resident in Singapore); 1915: family moved to England. Educated at Bedford School and Wimbledon College (exact dates unknown); 1927: left school to work in a bank; subsequently left, obtained a post as a laboratory technician and studied at evening classes at Regent Street Polytechnic; 1930: became a Chemistry student at Imperial College, London; 1931/2: BSc, Chemistry; 1934: PhD on copper phthalocyanin (later marketed by ICI as 'Monastral Blue'); Went to work for ICI Dyestuffs Group in Manchester; 1937: entered Univeristy College, London, as a medical student; 1939-1945: war service in France and as a consultant in chemistry in the scientific department of British censorship (as a specialist in secret writing), including service in Bermuda and the USA; 1943: awarded FRIC; 1944: qualified in medicine and became house physician to Sir Thomas Lewis at UCL; Married Margaret Ruth Coad; 1945: became Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians. Appointed Assistant to the Medical Unit at UCH Medical School under Sir Harold Himsworth; Went to the recently liberated concentration camp at Belsen as part of the MRC study group; studied the treatment of starvation by amino-acid mixtures; 1946-1947: Rockefeller scholarship - studied in Rochester, NY, USA. Post-war research, initially in the field of amino-acid metabolism. Pioneer in the field of partition chromatography for the study of biological fluids. Developed methods of random testing for metobolic disorders; Defined new amino-acid diseases such as various forms of Fanconi syndrome, Hartnup disease, argininosuccinic aciduria and homocystinuria; 1949: awarded MD; 1951: persuaded University College Hospital, London, to establish a metabolic ward with beds, laboratories and outpatient clinics. Appointed Reader in medicine. Research interests broadened to include the study of clinical disorders of calcium and phosphorus metabolism, vitamin D deficiency and the action of parathyroid; increasing emphasis on the clinical side of his work, rather than laboratory science; 1954: became Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians; 1956: appointed Professor of Human Metabolism; 1962: appointed Fellow of the Royal Society; 1976: awarded CBE. Died, September.