Charles Enrique Dent 1911 - 1976

Charles Dent was a physician and biochemist, born in Spain who later studied in Britain. In 1937 Dent decided to study medicine at University College, London. Interrupted by the Second World War, he completed his medical course in 1944 and became the last house officer of the distinguished physician Sir Thomas Lewis.

Dent's early scientific work, carried out with R. P. Linstead, was on phthalocyanines. In 1946 he applied the newly discovered method of paper chromatography to an investigation of the metabolism of amino acids in man. He studied the pattern of amino acid excretion in the urine and applied these methods to an investigation of metabolic disorders such as hypophosphatasia and cystinuria.Dent's later work was more oriented towards clinical medicine and he became an outstanding expert on diseases affecting the metabolism of calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium, as well as the pathology of bone. He also worked extensively on the pathology of vitamin D metabolism.

In 1945 Dent was a member of the medical team involved in the investigation and treatment of survivors of the Belsen concentration camp. The rest of his professional career was spent at University College Hospital medical school; he was appointed reader in medicine in 1951 and professor of human metabolism in 1956.