Nobel prize awarded to scientists for nitric oxide discoveries.

Nitric oxide was named “Molecule of the Year” in 1992 by the journal Science, but it took another 6 years for those responsible for the major discoveries surrounding it to win the Nobel Prize. Three US scientists—Robert F. Furchgott, PhD, Louis J. Ignarro, PhD, and Ferid Murad, MD, PhD—will receive the 1998 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine on December 10, 1998, in Stockholm, Sweden. The discovery of nitric oxide’s signaling role in the cardiovascular and nervous systems is now nearly 20 years old, but its clinical use is only beginning. Dr Furchgott, a distinguished professor of pharmacology at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Brooklyn, began the studies that led to the identification of nitric oxide as a biological agent in 1980. At that time, he was trying to reconcile the contradictory effects drugs had on blood vessels. He concluded that endothelial cells produce an unknown signal molecule that makes vascular smooth muscle cells relax. He called the signal molecule EDRF, or endothelium-derived relaxing factor. In unrelated experiments, Dr Murad, now chairman of the integrative biology department at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, was analyzing how nitroglycerin works. In 1977, while at the University of Virginia, he found that nitrates release nitric oxide, which relaxes smooth muscle cells, resulting in vasodilation. He was fascinated that the colorless, odorless gas could act as a signaling molecule. Dr Ignarro, now a professor of pharmacology at UCLA School of Medicine in Los Angeles, California, through a series of analyses concluded in 1986 that EDRF was identical to nitric oxide. His work, done independently and together with that of Dr Furchgott, prompted an increase in research activities in many areas of the world. The Nobel committee could recognize only 3 scientists, and their decision not to name Salvador Moncada, PhD, a professor at University College London, as one of the awardees provoked some comment. The controversy was similar to that when the Albert Lasker Awards were announced in 1996. At that time, Drs Murad and Furchgott were the awardees, and omission of Drs Ignarro and Moncada aroused comment. However, Dr Moncada has made no protest. Michael E. DeBakey, MD, chairman emeritus of the Lasker Award jury, said Murad and Furchgott received that prize because the work represents “a fundamental finding affecting the circulation. It is a fundamental and important observation.” Robert F. Furchgott, PhD Louis J. Ignarro, PhD Ferid Murad, MD, PhD