Elwood Vernon Jensen (January 13, 1920 – December 16, 2012) was the Distinguished University Professor, George and Elizabeth Wile Chair in Cancer Research at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine's Vontz Center for Molecular Studies. In 2004 he received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research for his research on estrogen receptors. He is considered the father of the field of hormone action.[1]
Jensen worked closely with Nobel laureateCharles Huggins; he joined the research team at the Ben May Laboratory for Cancer (now the Ben May Department of Cancer Research) in 1951 and became director after Huggins retired.[3] Jensen first described the estrogen receptor in 1958 and subsequently discovered the superfamily of nuclear hormone receptors along with a unifying mechanism that regulates embryonic development and diverse metabolic pathways.[1]