Jonas Kamlet

Jonas Kamlet, Ph.D., was a chemist, inventor, and a significant entrepreneur who worked for Miles Laboratories. He formulated and synthesized -- "invented", if you like -- One-A-Day vitamin tablets, the original multi-vitamin tablets. He left Miles Laboratory to found Kamlet Chemical Laboratories in New York City that became the model of a successful consulting firm. Among his hundreds of patents and inventions were the first blood glucose meter, a tablet that could be used to measure glucose in urine, a treated strip that could detect pregnancy, a fodder for ruminants that used newsprint, and biuret (a self-condensation product of urea) that could be used as a non-protein component of fodder.

Jonas was one of the 134 passengers who were killed in an air collision between a TWA Super-Constellation and a UAL DC-8 over Idlewild (now JFK) airport.

Following his death in December 1960, his wife and collaborator Edna (and later a resident of Florida) carried on the work of the firm until her retirement in about 1979.

A library and opera house in Sarasota Florida is named for him.

The University of South Florida is the caretaker of his collected works. Chemistry students can use Kamlet's foundational works to aid scientific discoveries in the future. Dr. Kamlet left a strong body of research that is contained in a large volume of papers, journals, and other published and unpublished work. The Kamlet Collection documents basic chemistry advancement from 1940 to the mid 1960s and will serve as a valuable resource for generations of future chemistry students.