Paul Greengard | |
|---|---|
 Greengard in 2009 | |
| Born | (1925-12-11)December 11, 1925 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | April 13, 2019(2019-04-13) (aged 93) New York City, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Hamilton College (BS) Johns Hopkins University (PhD) |
| Spouse(s) | Ursula von Rydingsvard (second marriage, in 1985) |
| Children | 2 (by his first marriage) |
| Awards | Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine(2000) NAS Award in the Neurosciences(1991) Dickson Prize(1978) Metlife Foundation Award for Medical Research in Alzheimer's Disease(1998)[1] |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | neuroscience |
| Institutions | Rockefeller University |
| Thesis | Some relationships between action potential, oxygen consumption and coenzyme content in degenerating peripheral axons (1954) |
| Doctoral advisor | Haldan Keffer Hartline |
Paul Greengard (December 11, 1925 – April 13, 2019) was an Americanneuroscientist best known for his work on themolecular andcellular function ofneurons. In 2000, Greengard,Arvid Carlsson andEric Kandel were awarded theNobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerningsignal transduction in thenervous system. He wasVincent Astor Professor atRockefeller University,[2] and served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Cure Alzheimer's Fund, as well as the Scientific Council of theBrain & Behavior Research Foundation. He was married to artistUrsula von Rydingsvard.
Greengard was born in New York City, the son of Pearl (née Meister) and Benjamin Greengard, a vaudeville comedian. His older sister was actressIrene Kane, who later became a writer by the name ofChris Chase; she died in 2013, aged 89. Their mother died in childbirth[3] and their father remarried in 1927.[4] The Greengard siblings' parents were Jewish, but their stepmother wasEpiscopalian. He and his sister were "brought up in the Christian tradition".[5]
DuringWorld War II, he served in theUnited States Navy as an electronics technician at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology working on an early warning system against Japanesekamikaze planes. After World War II, he attendedHamilton College where he graduated in 1948 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics. He decided against graduate school in physics because most post-war physics research was focusing on nuclear weapons, and instead became interested inbiophysics.
Greengard began his graduate studies atJohns Hopkins University in the lab ofHaldan Keffer Hartline. Inspired by a lecture byAlan Hodgkin, Greengard began work on the molecular and cellular function of neurons. He received his PhD in 1953 and began postdoctoral work at theUniversity of London,Cambridge University, and theUniversity of Amsterdam.[6][3] Greengard then became director of the Department of Biochemistry at theGeigy Research Laboratories.
After leaving Geigy in 1967, he worked briefly atYeshiva University'sAlbert Einstein College of Medicine andVanderbilt University before taking a position as Professor in the Department of Pharmacology atYale University. In 1983 he joined the faculty ofThe Rockefeller University.[6] Greengard was a member of the Board of Scientific Governors atThe Scripps Research Institute. He was the acting chairman of theFisher Center for Alzheimer's Research Foundation and served on the board of the Michael Stern Parkinson's Research Foundation, which later merged withThe Michael J. Fox Foundation.[7] Both internationally renowned foundations support the research conducted in the Greengard laboratory atThe Rockefeller University.[citation needed]
He died on April 13, 2019.[8][9]
Greengard's research focused on events inside the neuron caused byneurotransmitters. Specifically, Greengard and his fellow researchers studied the behavior ofsecond messenger cascades that transform the docking of a neurotransmitter with a receptor into permanent changes in the neuron. In a series of experiments, Greengard and his colleagues showed that whendopamine interacts with areceptor on thecell membrane of a neuron, it causes an increase incyclic AMP inside the cell. This increase of cyclic AMP, in turn activates a protein calledprotein kinase A, which turns other proteins on or off by addingphosphate groups in a reaction known asphosphorylation. The proteins activated by phosphorylation can then perform a number of changes in the cell: transcribingDNA to make new proteins, moving more receptors to thesynapse (and thus increasing the neuron's sensitivity), or movingion channels to the cell surface (and thus increasing the cell's excitability). He shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine withArvid Carlsson andEric Kandel for his work on the central regulatory proteinDARPP-32.[10]
Greengard had two sons from his first marriage, Claude andLeslie.[11] Claude Greengard holds a PhD in mathematics fromUC Berkeley, and is the Founder of Foss Hill Partners. Leslie holds an MD from theYale School of Medicine and a PhD in computer science fromYale University, and is a professor of mathematics and computer science at and former director of theCourant Institute of Mathematical Sciences atNYU, a winner of theSteele Prize for a seminal contribution to research, a recipient of both aPackard Foundation Fellowship and anNSFPresidential Young Investigator Award, and a member of both theU.S. National Academy of Engineering and theU.S. National Academy of Sciences.[12]
In 1985, Greengard married sculptorUrsula von Rydingsvard.[13]
In February 2018, a federal jury in the Southern District of New York found The Rockefeller University liable for discrimination based on race and national origin that occurred in 2007 in the lab of, and under the supervision of, Greengard.[14]
Paul Greengard used his Nobel Prize honorarium to help fund thePearl Meister Greengard Prize, anaward for women scientists. The award is named after his mother, who died during childbirth.[3] It was established in 2004 to shine a spotlight on exceptionalwomen in science, since, as Greengard observed, "[women] are not yet receiving awards and honors at a level commensurate with their achievements."[15] The annual prize is awarded to an outstanding woman conducting biomedical research.[16]
including the Nobel Lecture on 8 December 2000The Neurobiology of Dopamine Signaling
