Edwin H. Cohn became the first scientist ever to hold a University Professorship when President Conant announced his appointment last night. The post is one of the four top professorships at Harvard.

Professor of Biological Chemistry in the Medical School and Chairman of the Division of Medical Sciences in the College since 1935, Cohn is widely known among medical men for his development of new methods for separating the component parts of blood.

Follows Dean Pound

The appointment follows the retirement last year of Dean Roscoe Pound, who had served as University Professor since 1935, when the four posts were first established. The other three chairs are currently held by Werner Jaeger, Classicist; Summer H. Slichter, economist; and Ivor A. Richards, humanist.

Since University Professorships were reserved for men "working on the frontiers of knowledge," Cohn in his new position will be free to collaborate with any individual school or department of the University. The liberal endowment for his post will provide him with ample allowance for assistants and other expenses of study.

Cohn will continue his research group in the Department of Physical Chemistry at the Medical School, he said last night. Concerning any future plans, Cohn would only say, "If you know what I'm going to do, you know a lot more than I do."

The New University Professor was born in 1892, attended Phillips Academy, Andover, Amherst, and the University of Chicago, from which he was graduated in 1914. He did graduate work at Chicago, Harvard, and Yale, and received his Ph.D. from Chicago in 1917.

All of his investigations into the components of blood and other tissues have been carried on at the Medical School, where he has been since 1920. The Rockefeller Foundation has been supporting his research for the last 20 years