The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1977
Roger Guillemin, Andrew V. Schally, Rosalyn Yalow
I was
born in France on January 11, 1924 in the small town of Dijon,
the capital of Burgundy. I was educated there in the public
schools and the lycée. I entered medical school in Dijon in
1943 and received the M.D. degree from the Faculté de
Médecine of Lyon in 1949, - the two schools were then
administratively connected, with the larger school of Lyon
granting the degrees. All my medical studies and training were
totally clinically oriented, with three years of what we could
call rotating internship. There was no laboratory facility of any
sort in Dijon, except for gross anatomy. Dark years of no fun
youth these were; France had fallen to the Germans in 1940; Dijon
was from then on occupied by the German army until liberation
days in 1944.
During these five years of medical studies, I had always been
interested in endocrinology, probably because two of my best
teachers of clinical medicine, P. Etienne-Martin and J. Charpy
were themselves interested in what were in those days the early
concepts of endocrinology and the beginning logical therapy it
appeared to offer. I always hoped that somehow I could one day
work in a laboratory. In France you had terminated your medical
studies after 5 years of curriculum; you could then practice
medicine - which I did for some time. To obtain the degree of
Doctor in Medicine you had to write and defend a dissertation, a
thesis; that was usually pro forma. I decided, however, to
write a dissertation for the M.D. degree that I would enjoy,
hopefully on some work I could perform in a laboratory.
One day, I learned that Hans Selye would lecture in Paris on his
alarm reaction and the endocrinology of the general adaptation
syndrome. I went to hear him. The magnetism of the man was
extraordinary. I went to talk to him after one of his lectures. A
few months later I was in Selye's newly created Institute of
Experimental Medicine and Surgery at the University of
Montreal, with a modest fellowship from Selye's funds. In one
year I completed some experimental work on
desoxycorticosterone-induced hypertension in bilaterally
nephrectomized rats kept alive for several weeks by peritoneal
dialysis; that constituted the material for the thesis necessary
in the French system to obtain the M.D. degree, which I obtained
in Lyon upon the defense of that dissertation, in 1949. Not much
interested in the academism and formalism of a research career
within the French system that was then open to me, I returned to
Selye's Institute, and three years later eventually obtained a
Ph.D. degree in physiology in 1953. In these four years I had
learned experimental endocrinology in a remarkable program
jointly conducted between McGill University and the University of Montreal. In
1953, I joined the staff of the Department of Physiology at the
Baylor
University College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, as a young
assistant professor. I taught physiology at Baylor College of
Medicine for 18 years, until 1970. While in Selye's department, I
had become interested in the problem of the physiological control
of the secretion of the pituitary gland as it was involved in the
acute response to stress. This was due particularly to friendly
contacts with Claude Fortier and to a long visit by Geoffrey W.
Harris from London.
I have recounted in some details in a chapter of Volume 2, of
Pioneers in Neuroendocrinology, J. Meites (ed.), Plenum
Press Publ., 1978, how I became more and more involved in the
search for the chemical mediators of hypothalamic origin,
suspected to control the functions of the pituitary gland; how
Schally came to me at Baylor from the
laboratory of Murray Saffran at McGill immediately after he had
obtained there his Ph.D. degree in biochemistry - as we both
thought that we would solve in no time the problem of the nature
of CRF (the corticotropin releasing factor); how I went back to
France in 1960, - on academic promises that did not materialize,
thus returned to Houston in 1963, and later, in 1970, went to the
Salk Institute
to establish our present Laboratories for Neuroendocrinology.
That chapter written in a light anecdotal manner, along with two
reviews, one concerning the isolation and characterization of the
first of the hypothalamic releasing factor, TRF (in Vitamins
and Hormones, 29, 1-39, 1971), the other concerning the
isolation of the luteinizing hormone releasing factor (in Am.
J. Obs. and Gynecol., 129, 214-218, 1977) will give the
interested reader a good historical description of these early
years of, indeed, true pioneering in neuroendocrinology.
I served for 11 years on several advisory groups (Study Sections)
of the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) - an experience that was as
rewarding as it was exhausting - as a member of the Council of
the American Endocrine Society from 1969-1973.
I was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, in 1974, a
member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1976. I
have been honored by several national and international
scientific recognitions: among which The Gairdner International
Award, Toronto, Canada, 1974; The Dickson Prize in Medicine, The
University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1976; the Passano Award
in the Medical Sciences, Baltimore, Maryland, 1976; the Lasker
Award in Basic Sciences, New York, 1975; and recently the
National Medal of Science presented by the President of the
USA.
I have received honorary degrees, from the University of
Rochester (D.Sc.), 1976; the University of Chicago (D.Sc.), 1977;
and the Légion d'Honneur from the French government in
1973.
I consider as major honors to have been asked to deliver numerous
memorial lectures, in particular the Harvey Lecture, The
Rockefeller University, New York, 1974; the Jane Russell Wilhelmi
Memorial Lecture, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, 1976; the
Geoffrey W. Harris Memorial Lecture, International Congress of
Endocrinology, Hamburg, Germany, 1976; The Gregory Pincus
Memorial Lecture, The Laurentian Hormone Conference, 1976; The
Herbert M. Evans, Memorial Lecture, University of California in
San Francisco, 1977.
In Houston, in Paris, in La Jolla, where I set up shop - sometime
simultaneously as in the days of commuting between Paris and
Houston - I have had the extraordinary privilege to work with
wonderful collaborators some so much more knowledgeable in their
own field than I was (or still am), all full of enthusiasm and
sharing common ethics of science. The work recognized in this
Nobel Prize was a group effort and achievement. I started writing
the list of these colleagues, collaborators, students who worked
with me, starting in 1953; I stopped when I realized more than
one hundred names were involved. Of unique roles and significance
in the saga of the hypothalamic hormones in which I was involved,
I must call to the lime light Edvart Sakiz, now in Paris, Roger
Burgus, now in La Jolla, Wylie Vale who came to me as a graduate
student, now in La Jolla, Nicholas Ling and Jean Rivier, both now
in La Jolla. They, and their own students, are and will be the
future of this expanding field or research.
My wife is a musician of talent and, so far, five of our six
children are already in artistic careers or show a definite
preference for artistic endeavors; one only, may be a biologist
some day. And all that is fine with me. Since 1970 when we came
to the Salk Institute, we have lived in La Jolla, a suburb of San
Diego, in a Mediterranean house which we have filled, if not
overfilled, with many contemporary paintings French and American,
sculptures and potteries mostly from pre-Columbian Mexico and
also from New Guinea. Several keyboards and string instruments
are also part of the enjoyable living environment of that happy
house.
From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1977, Editor Wilhelm Odelberg, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1978
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1977
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