Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Categories: 1916 births | Biochemists | Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winners | Pharmacologists
Robert F. Furchgott
Robert F. Furchgott (born June 4, 1916 in Charleston, South Carolina) is a Nobel Prize-winning American chemist.
Furchgott graduated with a degree in chemistry in 1937 from the University of North Carolina, and became doctor of biochemistry at Northwestern University in 1940. From 1956 to 1988, he was professor of pharmacology at the State University of New York.
In 1978, Furchgott discovered a substance in endothelial cells that relaxes blood vessels, calling it endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF). By 1986, he had worked out EDRF's nature and mechanism of action, and determined that EDRF was in fact nitric oxide (NO), an important compound in many aspects of cardiovascular physiology.
Aside from the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine he received in 1998, Furchgott has also received a Gairdner Foundation International Award for his groundbreaking discoveries (1991) and the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (1996), the latter with Ferid Murad.
As of 2004, Furchgott lives in Brooklyn and has three children.
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