ASAS Centennial Paper: Animal growth and development research: Historical perspectives

From a historical perspective, it is difficult to identify a specific date that launched the field of endocrinology. One "biomarker" of the inception of endocrinology traces back to Ernest Henry Starling, who first introduced the word hormone in a talk given in 1905 at the Royal College of Physicians in London (Starling, 1905). A historical look at the field of endocrine regulation of animal growth since 1905 conveys that countless scientists worldwide worked to advance the scientific evidence base, which led to the commercial development of hormone-based products that enhanced growth and beneficially changed carcass composition of meat animals. This review will discuss some of seminal contributions that include the discovery of hormones (like ST and β-adrenergic agonists) that have been shown to play key roles in regulating growth and nutrient partitioning of livestock, the mechanisms by which these hormones act, and the development of products for application in animal agriculture.