Andrew Schalley, Nobel laureate for linking brain hormones, dies at 97

Together, Dr. Scully and Guillemin helped create the field of neuroendocrinology—the study of how the brain influences hormonal levels—leading to advances in the birth control pill, research into dopamine and its connection to Parkinson’s disease, and treatments for prostate cancer. and other diseases.

But at the Nobel ceremony in 1977, the intense and sideways glances of Drs Challey and Guillemin stood out against the joy of other laureates, including their medical prize co-winner Rosalynn Yalow, who developed methods using radioactive isotopes to measure hormones and other substances in the bloodstream.

“We just had to put up with each other,” Dr. Shally said of sharing the stage in Oslo with Guillemin.

In science journalist Nicholas Wade’s 1981 book The Nobel Duel, which chronicles 21 years of parallel experiments, Guillemin calls it “competition in the good sense.” Dr. Challey, however, rarely missed a chance to pit his rival against him, declaring that Guillemin was behind “many years of brutal attacks and brutal retribution.”

Remarkably, the two men had twin life histories: they lived through World War II in Europe – Guillemin in his native France, and Dr. Challey as a Polish refugee in Romania – then found their way to Montreal to continue their studies, and eventually became colleagues at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Their rivalry was made even more compelling because the scientific community wasn’t sure there was anything to be found.

Their goal was to discover long-hypothesized substances called neurohormones, produced by the pea-sized hypothalamus at the base of the skull. From here, chemical messages are transmitted to the pituitary gland, the main regulator of the endocrine system network, which includes the thyroid gland, ovaries and testicles.

The concept of hormones controlled by the nervous system was first proposed in the 1930s. But for decades there was no clear idea of ​​how to detect them or whether they even existed.

Some skeptics ridiculed Dr. Schally and Guillemin, calling them akin to hunters of the Loch Ness monster. And even if neurohormones exist, how can they be found? The quantities will be so small, moving through ultra-small capillaries near the hypothalamus, that it will be like searching for a specific grain of sand in a huge dune.

“It was a herculean task,” Gary Hammer, director of the endocrine oncology program at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, said in an interview.

The first stop was the slaughterhouses. Over nearly a decade, Dr. Shally and his research team minced the hypothalamus of more than 160,000 pigs. They adapted existing methods to analyze the biochemical composition of manure. (Guillemin’s team started with the hypothalamus of cows and then moved on to sheep.)

Everyone knew that whoever got the first results would have the opportunity to receive grants and other funding.

In 1969, Dr. Schally announced that he had isolated a small amount of thyrotropin-releasing hormone, which directs the pituitary gland to control the thyroid gland. This was the first measurable evidence of the existence of neurohormones. A few days later, Guillemin released similar data.

“This discovery was 99 percent the result of sweat,” Science News reported in a study of the two-way research battle.

Dr. Shalley, working with Japanese scientists, made another breakthrough in 1971 by isolating LRF, or luteinizing hormone-releasing factor, which helps control reproductive functions such as the menstrual cycle.

But next year Guillemin found himself in the spotlight. He announced that his laboratory had identified a neurohormone known as somatostatin, which inhibits the production of growth hormone by the pituitary gland and plays a role in the creation of insulin and other body-regulating chemicals.

In a 1979 article published in Omni magazine, Dr. Shalley described his laboratory as a “scientific battle sergeant.” He constantly complained about being considered a bully compared to Guillemin, who had an aura of sophistication. However, Dr. Shalley undoubtedly spilled the most dirt in public.

“They always, always, always describe Guillemin as polite and sophisticated,” he told the magazine, “while they paint me as a warmonger.”

The Nobel committee recognized a “formidable race” between them: Guillemin was then at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, and Dr. Schally was at the Veterans Administration Hospital in New Orleans. Their work, the committee noted, “laid the foundations of modern hypothalamic research.”

Their contributions included ways to control hormonal levels to slow prostate cancer in men and develop more effective oral contraceptives for women.

Somatostatin has become the basis of some anti-nausea drugs and has played a role in potential treatments aimed at suppressing the growth of pancreatic and other tumors. Dr. Shally said he began using his treatment in 2016. after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

“I was fortunate to do practical work that benefited my health,” Dr. Shally told the alumni magazine of McGill University in Montreal, where he studied in the 1950s.

Andrzej Victor Schally was born on November 30, 1926 in the Polish city of Vilna, now Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. His father was a high-ranking Polish military man who also served in government positions.

When German troops entered Poland in September 1939, triggering the Soviet Union’s invasion, Dr. Schally’s father joined the fight against Nazi forces. The rest of the family fled to Romania, surrounded by Polish President Ignacy Mosticki and other high-ranking officials.

At age 16, while still in Romania, Dr. Challey said he read a biography of French biochemist Louis Pasteur, which sparked his fascination with scientific discoveries.

After the war, Dr. Shally went to Scotland, where he changed his name to Andrew. He got a job as an apprentice technician at the National Institute for Health Research in London. In 1952, he decided to cross the Atlantic to continue his studies at university. He chose Canada out of fear that he might be drawn into the Korean War if he came to the United States.

He graduated from McGill in 1955 and remained there to complete his doctorate, received in 1957 while already a Canadian citizen. That same year, having already deepened his laboratory research on the hypothalamus, he accepted a research position at Baylor Medical School. Dr. Shalley became a U.S. citizen in 1962, the same year he took positions at the New Orleans Veterans Hospital and then at Tulane University.

His awards include the Lasker Prize, one of the highest honors in science, awarded in 1975. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 destroyed his laboratory in New Orleans. He continued his research into his 90s at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Miami.

His first marriage, to Margaret White, with whom he had two children, ended in divorce. Dr. Challey married Brazilian endocrinologist Ana Maria de Medeiros-Comaru in 1976; she died in 2004. In 2011, he married Maria de Lourdes Rasmussen.

His daughter Karen Del Rosso died in 2022. In addition to his wife and son, he is survived by five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.