Secretin
Secretin was the first hormone to be identified. In 1902, William Bayliss and Ernest Starling were studying how the nervous system controls the process of digestion. It was known that the pancreas secreted digestive juices in response to the passage of food (chyme) through the pyloric sphincter into the duodenum. They discovered (by cutting all the nerves to the pancreas in their experimental animals) that this process was not, in fact, governed by the nervous system. They determined that a substance secreted by the intestinal lining stimulates the pancreas after being transported via the bloodstream. They named this intestinal secretion "secretin". Secretin was the first such "chemical messenger" identified. This type of substance is now called a hormone, a term coined by Bayliss in 1905.
Teresa Woodruff
Dr. Woodruff’s scientific successes started early in her career—in 1986, as a graduate student in the laboratory of Dr. Kelly Mayo at Northwestern University, she cloned the subunits that form the peptide hormones inhibin and activin, placing her at the forefront of modern reproductive molecular biology. She thrived within the strong collaborative environment of the Mayo and Schwartz labs—Neena B. Schwartz discovered inhibin in 1977 at Northwestern—allowing her to rapidly describe inhibin subunit regulation during the rat estrus cycle, publishing her results in "Science" in 1988. These peptide hormones are powerful and their absence causes sterility. This work was recognized in 2000 by the Endocrine Society Weitzman Award, given to a scientist of exceptional promise under the age of 40.