1901: The Beginning of the Research Program

Dr. Henry Plummer (right) joins the Mayo practice as the fourth partner. He urges the Drs. Mayo to consider a research program as a necessary and vital part of the practice and makes many contributions toward that end.

1905: Differential Staining of Fresh-Frozen Tissue

Dr. Louis B. Wilson (left), Mayo's first basic scientist, joins Mayo as director of laboratories. This same year, Dr. Wilson develops a method for differential staining of fresh-frozen tissue from surgical specimens. Once frozen and stained using methylene dye, the tissue can be studied under a microscope and within two to three minutes, an accurate, histologic diagnosis can be made. He also begins a collection of tissue specimens.

1914: Mayo's First Physiologist

Dr. Frank C. Mann joins Mayo as its first physiologist. Dr. Edward C. Kendall, a young biochemist from New York City, joins the staff. While working in his laboratory on Christmas morning, he isolates the principal active component of the thyroid gland, which he later namesthyroxin.

1915: Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research Established

Drs. Charles and William Mayo establish the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research in affiliation with the University of Minnesota. Dr. Edward C. Rosenow comes from the Memorial Institute of Infectious Diseases, Chicago, to lead work in experimental bacteriology.

1916: Metabolism Laboratory Established

Dr. Walter Boothby, a physiologist from Harvard, arrives in Rochester and establishes a metabolism laboratory. Over a period of years, he establishes the first reliable standards for evaluation of thyroid disease.

1920: System for Grading Cancer

Dr. Albert C. Broders, a surgical pathologist, publishes a description of a system for grading cancer on a numerical basis, which is adopted by laboratories in hospitals all over the world, and is still used today.

1921: Diabetes Research

Dr. Boothby and Dr. Wilder organize a laboratory to study diabetic patients. Their research contributes to the basis of Mayo's standards for basal metabolic rates. Dr. Mann devises a complex three-stage operation to remove the liver, which eventually leads to defining the role of the liver in supplying glucose to the body and to the identification of the liver's function in the formation of urea.

1922: Dr. Plummer and Thyroid Treatment

Dr. Plummer, knowing from Dr. Kendall's work that thyroxin was 65 percent iodine, reasons that iodine should be a suitable treatment in select cases of thyrotoxicosis. This introduces a new era in thyroid treatment.

1926: Diabetic Diets

Dr. Russell Wilder writes on diabetes and metabolism, and develops guidelines for diabetic diets. Together with Dr. Marschelle Power, he provides proof of the insulin link to diabetes.

1929: Photoelectric Eye

Dr. Charles Sheard and Dr. Arthur Sanford develop the Sheard-Sanford Photelometer, a photoelectric eye that gauges the concentration of substances in solution based on the amount of light the solution absorbs. The device performs fifty chemical tests mechanically and provides the first accurate tests for measuring anemia.

1938: Aviators & High Altitude Flying

Dr. Randolph Lovelace, Dr. Walter Boothby and Dr. Arthur H. Bulbulian collaborate to design the BLB mask (right). It enables aviators in World War II to fly at high altitudes and is later adapted for patients who require oxygen therapy.

1940: Promin for Suppressing Tuberculosis

Dr. William Feldman and Dr. H. Corwin Hinshaw experiment with the sulfone compound Promin. Promin becomes the first antimicrobial substance proven effective in suppressing experimental tuberculous infection by human tubercle bacilli. Promin is also effective in the treatment of leprosy.

1941: Centrifuge Simulates Blackout

A human centrifuge (left), designed by Dr. Baldes, is constructed and housed in a circular unit on the site of the present Medical Sciences Building. Its purpose is to simulate blackout, a condition experienced by aviators during acceleration in high-speed turns or when pulling out of a dive in new, high-powered airplanes.

1942: Anti-blackout Suit

Drs. E. J. Baldes, Charles Code, Earl Wood and Ed Lambert, with other colleagues, work on the problem of aviator blackout. Their work leads to the development of an anti-blackout suit worn by American fliers in World War II. Instruments and technologies developed in this program give Mayo a leadership role in the development of heart catheterization and pulmonary function testing.

1944: Measuring Arterial Blood

Dr. Earl Wood and Dr. Ed Lambert, using the Statham Strain Gauge, developed for use in industry by Louis Statham, devise ingenious modifications for its use in measuring arterial blood pressure. The gauge becomes the standard instrument for measurement of intracardiac and intravascular pressures.

1945: Streptomycin Studies

Drs. W. H. Feldman and Corwin Hinshaw establish an experimental program to confirm the effects of streptomycin and initiate therapeutic use of streptomycin and cases of clinical tuberculosis.

1948: Kendall's Compound E for Rheumatoid Arthritis

Dr. Philip Hench, a clinical investigator in rheumatology, administers Dr. Kendall's compound E to patients with rheumatoid arthritis, a major therapeutic advancement (right). Once widely available, compound E (now known as cortisone) revolutionizes the treatment of Addison's disease and pituitary insufficiency and the medical anagement of hyperfunctioning lesions of the adrenal cortex. Dr. Malcolm Hargraves, working with heparinized bone marrow, discovers the cell that identifies lupus.

1950: Nobel Prize for Cortisone

Drs. Edward C. Kendall and Philip S. Hench, along with Tadeus Reichstein, a Swiss biochemist, share the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine for their work in isolating cortisone and applying it clinically in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

1951: Gibbon Pump

Dr. Earl Wood, working with surgeon Dr. John Kirklin, begins refinement of a device invented by Dr. Gibbon of Philadelphia. The machine pumps blood through an oxygenator, bypassing the heart so that a surgeon can open the heart and repair it.

1953: Heart Catheterization

Dr. John T. Shepherd works with Dr. Earl Wood as a research assistant in the study of the human cardiovascular system and in application of a new technique known as heart catheterization, a forerunner of open-heart surgery.

1955: Open Heart Surgery

Mayo becomes the first medical center to perform open heart surgery using the Mayo-Gibbon Heart Lung Machine, refined by Dr. Earl Wood and Dr. Kirklin.

1966: Rochester Epidemiology Project

Dr. Leonard Kurland introduces the Rochester Epidemiology Project, a medical records-linkage system that has made Olmsted County one of the few places in the world where the occurrence and natural history of diseases can be accurately described.

1971: General Clinical Research Center (GCRC)

The Mayo Clinic received its first grant from the National Institutes of Health for support of a General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) in 1971.

1980: Intensive Insulin Therapy

Mayo researchers are among the first to propose intensive insulin therapy to reduce the complications of diabetes.

1983: Mayo Graduate School

Mayo Clinic became an independent, degree granting institution accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Mayo Graduate School became an independent school in 1984.

1987: Mayo Clinic Scottsdale

Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale opens and St. Luke's Hospital, Jacksonville, becomes part of Mayo Clinic.

1990: Illness and L-tryptophan

Mayo researchers help identify source of illness affecting people taking health supplement L-tryptophan.

1993: Samuel C. Johnson Medical Research Building

Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale opened the Samuel C. Johnson Medical Research Building where medical scientists are engaged in some of the most promising branches of medical research, such as molecular genetics, cell and molecular biology.

1993: Birdsall Medical Research Building

Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Birdsall Medical Research Building has ten laboratories that allow scientists to investigate neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

1998: Transplantation Biology

Mayo establishes a transplantation biology program to develop novel approaches to avoiding organ rejection and applying xenotransplantation therapies.

1999: Center for Patient Oriented Research

The Center for Patient Oriented Research (CPOR) was formed and designed to provide services that would support and enhance the clinical research efforts of young research investigators at Mayo Clinic.

2001: Griffin Cancer Research Building

Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Griffin Cancer Research Building was completed in 2001 and is the first building devoted primarily to cancer research.

2001: DNA Test for Anthrax

Mayo Clinic in Rochester developed a DNA test to rapidly detect anthrax. The new test can identify the presence of anthrax in less than one hour instead of days.