Earl Wilbur Sutherland Jr. (November 19, 1915 – March 9, 1974) was a U.S. physiologist. Dr. Sutherland was born on November 19, 1915 in Burlingame, Kansas. He won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1971 "for his discoveries concerning the mechanisms of the action of hormones," especially epinephrine, via second messengers (such as cyclic adenosine monophosphate, cyclic AMP).
He received his bachelor's degree (Chemistry) in 1937 from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas and earned his medical degree in 1942 fromWashington University Medical School in St. Louis. After serving as a doctor in World War II, he returned to Washington University as a researcher in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Carl Ferdinand Cori. In 1953, he became director of the department of medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where he discovered the role of cyclic AMP in mediating the action of certain hormones. In 1963, desiring to limit his duties to research, Sutherland moved to Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville where he was a professor of physiology until 1973. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1966, won the Albert Lasker Award for basic medical research in 1970, and received the National Medal of Science in 1973. At the time of his death in 1974, Sutherland was a distinguished professor of biochemistry at University of Miami Medical School.