Aaron Bunsen Lerner (September 21, 1920 – February 3, 2007)[1] was an American physician, researcher and professor who is known for the discovery of melatonin.
Born in 1920 in Minneapolis, Lerner received his medical degree and a PhD in chemistry from the University of Minnesota in 1945.
[4][5][2] He was in 1973 elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences (Medical physiology and metabolism).
Lerner is perhaps best known for leading the team of researchers who isolated and named, in 1958, the hormone melatonin.
He was an expert in the metabolic basis of inherited diseases, particularly vitiligo for which he, in the 1980s, developed a skin transplantation therapy.