Julius Axelrod: 1970 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology
You see people plagued by this on the streets, sitting next to you on the subway, or sometimes even at your bedside. Mental illnesses affect one in four people worldwide. For these people, Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil are all common names of medications that they take in order to take hold of their lives. Prior to the findings of Julius Axelrod (1912-2004), recipient of 1970 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology, mental illness was perceived as an affliction of your feelings and surroundings. Not only did his work lead to our understanding that mental illness is actually a medical problem, but it also led to the creation of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI’s), which help alleviate this problem.
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Did his incident with the exploding ammonia bottle spark his interest in painkillers?
His interest in pharmacology and painkillers is mostly attributed to meeting Dr. Brodie and doing research with him.
Did his eye injury impact his ability to do research at all?
I didn’t find any information about impediments he faced because of this. I know that he adjusted by wearing a darkened lens over one eye, but continued to carry out his passion through his intensive research. As you can see through his discoveries and Nobel Prize, the lost eye didn’t slow him down.
Did his discovery improve future medications involving the nervous system and possibly other systems?
In discovering neurotransmitter reuptake, Axelrod showed that you can make drugs that focus selectively on one neurotransmitter at a time. In the case of depression, past drugs would randomly inhibit neurotransmitters, meaning that they gave a patient a medication because it happened to work. This discovery really laid down the groundwork for any drugs that involving changing the flow of neurotransmitters.
How did the rejection by all the medical schools he applied to affect his life?
Initially, he had wanted to become a doctor. However, these rejections led to a more behind-the-scenes approach where he did a lot of testing and experimentation. This steered him down the road to pharmacology and medicine.
How did his previous work up to his PhD influence his work on the Nobel Prize?
Getting his PhD was essentially a way of making sure that he’d get recognition for his work. So it’s not as if there was a change in his interest because he got a PhD. He actually resumed working at the National Institutes of Health afterward.
Did this progressive collaboration create disputes between the scientists on who was given credit?
He didn’t have the credentials to receive credit, so his situation was understandable. However, he was obviously discontent, which is why he went back to get his PhD to get all the credit he deserved.
Do you know how the eye accident affected his research and studies?
Although he was impaired in one eye, his research wasn’t really affected because he had such a strong drive for it.
You said that he used his recognition from the Nobel Prize to spread awareness of his research. How did he do this and how successful was he in doing so?
After gaining this newfound public power, he became very politically active.When younger people challenged his research, he actually addressed this at a Nobel ceremony. However, it wasn’t really just spreading awareness about his research, but ideas about science in general. For instance, after Nixon signed a bill to create the Conquest of Cancer Agency in the 70’s, Axelrod and other laureates protested this because they felt it would narrow the focus in biomedical research to cancer too much.
It’s pretty interesting that he overcame an injury like that, especially one sustained while conducting research. I wonder if this effected the way he conducted experiments afterward?
Since he lost his left eye, he had to wear a darkened lens over it for the rest of his life. Although it made him ineligible to serve in the U.S. military during WWII, it didn’t affect his research.
Did prejudice against his religion or disability limit his research opportunities?
How is his discovery still relevant today?
Did he remain in New York City for most of his life?
I’m curious as to why he was actually rejected by the schools he applied to…was his grades subpar? It just seems astonishing how a Nobel Prize winning scientist wasn’t deemed qualified to be a scientists by multiple schools.