
Andrew Victor Schally
(1926)
Polish-born U.S. endocrinologist whose work in isolating and synthesizing
hormones that are produced by the hypothalamus and control the activities
of other hormone-producing glands led to his being awarded a share (with
Roger Guillemin and Rosalyn Yalow) of the 1977 Nobel Prize for Physiology
or Medicine.
Schally fled Poland with his family in 1939. He attended the University
of London and worked for three years at the National Institute for Medical
Research in London before travelling to Montreal to enter McGill University.
He graduated in 1955 and two years later took a Ph.D. in biochemistry.
From 1957 to 1962 he was associated with Baylor University in Houston,
Texas, and in the latter year he became chief of endocrine and polypeptide
laboratories at the Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center in New
Orleans. At the same time he joined the medical faculty of the Tulane
University School of Medicine, becoming professor in 1967. He became
senior medical investigator with the VA in 1973. Schally became a U.S.
citizen in 1962.
Among Schally's chief accomplishments were the synthesis of TRH (thyrotropin-releasing
hormone), the isolation and synthesis of LH-RH (luteinizing hormone-releasing
hormone), and studies of the action of somatostatin.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Nicholas Wade, The Nobel Duel (1981), recounts the 21-year research
contest between Schally and Roger Guillemin.
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