Andrew Schally studied how the hypothalamus controls secretion by the pituitary gland through small peptides. His work helped establish a chemical connection between brain activity and the release of hormones, and he shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning brain peptide hormone production. He worked at Tulane and the Veterans Affairs hospital in New Orleans for more than four decades.[ref]
Dr. Andrew Schally, former Tulane endocrinologist and Nobel laureate, dies at 97 by Tulane University. institutional obituary, career and hypothalamic peptide research
One important experimental question was whether separate hypothalamic signals were needed for the two gonadotropins, luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone. Schally and colleagues' 1971 report described a purified hypothalamic factor that stimulated both. This connected a chemically characterized signal to two measured pituitary gland responses and helped establish the role of gonadotropin-releasing hormone.[ref]
Portrait attributed to NASA in the Wikimedia Commons file record.
New to topics? Read the docs here!