Unknown author · Public domain

Stanley Cohen isolated nerve growth factor and then discovered epidermal growth factor, identifying the molecular signals that tell cells when to grow and divide — research that became foundational to understanding cancer and to designing the drugs used against it. He shared the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Rita Levi-Montalcini, doing the core work at Washington University in St. Louis before a four-decade career at Vanderbilt.