Ferid Murad is an American doctor and pharmacologist who shared the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering that nitric oxide (NO) acts as a signaling molecule in mammals’ cardiovascular systems. His work, along with the independent research of Robert F. Furchgott and Louis J. Ignarro, helped cardiovascular medicine make big steps forward. He grew up in Indiana as the son of hardworking restaurant owners. He saw how hard his less educated parents worked to make a living. This made him want to go to school and get a job when he was old enough. He started helping his parents run the business when he was young, so he learned early on the value of hard work and sticking with something. The boy wanted to become a doctor because his mother cared about the poor. He was a very good student and got his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from DePauw University’s pre-med program. He then went to Case Western Reserve University to get his MD and Ph.D. in pharmacology. He worked as a doctor and started a career in academia at the same time. In the 1970s, he did research that showed that nitroglycerin and a few other heart drugs cause nitric oxide to form. Scientists Robert F. Furchgott and Louis J. Ignarro built on Murad’s work. This led to important discoveries that changed the way heart problems were treated.
Early years and childhood
Ferid Murad was born on September 14, 1936, in Whiting, Indiana. His parents were Albanian immigrants from Gostivar, Macedonia, named Jabir Murat Ejupi (later known as John Murad) and Henrietta Bowman, who was an American Christian. He grew up in Whiting, Indiana, with two younger brothers. His parents ran a restaurant there when he was young.
Since Ferid’s parents didn’t go to school much, he was determined to go to school as much as possible. He took after his parents in that he worked hard and was determined from a young age. When he was in school, he would help his parents run the restaurant.
He knew he was meant to be a doctor when he was 12 years old. But his parents couldn’t pay for him to go to medical school after high school, so he started looking for scholarships.
He got a Rector Scholarship at DePauw University in Greencastle because he was a good student. In 1958, he got his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the pre-med program. Then, at the suggestion of a teacher, he joined a new MD-Ph.D. program at Case Western Reserve University and got his MD and Ph.D. in pharmacology in 1965.
Ferid Murad’s Career
He did an internship in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital from 1965 to 1966, and then he worked there as an intern (1966-67). Then, in 1967, he went to work as a Clinical Associate and Senior Assistant Surgeon for the Public Health Service at the National Heart and Lung Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He did research there for three years in the lab of Martha Vaughan.
In 1970, he became an Associate Professor of both medicine and pharmacology in the Department of Medicine at the University of Virginia. He worked in the new Clinical Pharmacology Division. In 1971, he became the Director of their Clinical Research Center, and in 1973, he became the Director of Clinical Pharmacology. He had a very successful career there. In 1975, he was given the title of full professor.
During the 1970s, he studied cyclic GMP (cyclic guanosine monophosphate) and worked with other scientists to do the first tests on the effects of nitric oxide on living things (NO). In 1977, he showed that nitroglycerin and a few related heart drugs cause the body to make nitric oxide, which is a colorless, odorless gas that makes blood vessels in the body bigger.
Murad’s important research laid the groundwork for the work of scientists Robert F. Furchgott and Louis J. Ignarro, who built on Murad’s work to make some very important discoveries that not only led to better ways to treat heart diseases but also indirectly led to the creation of drugs that help people who are unable to have sexual relations.
In 1981, Ferid Murad became Chief of Medicine at the Palo Alto VA Medical Center at Stanford University. He worked there until 1986. He was the acting chair of medicine from 1986 to 1988.
In 1988, he left Stanford to become Vice President of Pharmaceutical Discovery at Abbott Laboratories. In 1993, he started the Molecular Geriatrics Corporation, a biotechnology company that he ran as its president. The venture, however, did not work out.
In 1997, he went back to school and joined the University of Texas Medical School at Houston to start a new department that combined biology, physiology, and pharmacology. There, he was Professor and Director Emeritus of The Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Disease, John S.
Dunn Distinguished Chair in Physiology and Medicine, and Deputy Director of The Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, among other things.
In 2011, he became a professor at George Washington University in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Works of note
Ferid Murad did a lot of research on cyclic guanosine monophosphate (GMP), which is made when nitroglycerin makes an enzyme work. He showed that this happened because nitroglycerin gave off nitrous oxide (NO). His work led to more research that showed that cyclic GMP is a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system.
Awards & Achievements
The Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research was given to Murad and Robert F. Furchgott in 1996.
The 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was given to Ferid Murad, Robert F. Furchgott, and Louis J. Ignarro for their work on nitric oxide as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system.
Personal History and Legacies
In 1957, he met Carol Ann Leopold, who was studying English and Spanish at DePauw. On June 21, 1958, they got married. There is one boy and four girls in the family.
Estimated Net worth
Ferid Murad is one of the wealthiest doctors and is on the list of the most popular doctors. Based on what we know and what Wikipedia, Forbes, and Business Insider say, Ferid Murad’s net worth is about $1.5 million.