A Conversation with Paul Greengard

Dr. Paul Greengard, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University, talks about his life and career with his former student Dr. Eric Nestler, Professor and Chair of Neuroscience at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Dr. Greengard won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the signaling pathways in the nervous system. He and his colleagues showed nerve cells communicate through either fast or slow synaptic transmission. Dr. Greengard discusses their discoveries and the resistance and skepticism they faced when they published the results.

Paul Greengard was born in New York City in 1925. After completing high school, he served three years in the US Navy during World War II and then completed his bachelor's degree at Hamilton College where he majored in physics and mathematics. He obtained a PhD in biophysics from Johns Hopkins University in 1953 and pursued postdoctoral training with Wilhelm Feldberg at the National Institute for Medical Research in England. After eight years as head of biochemistry at Geigy, and sabbaticals at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Vanderbilt University, he joined the Yale University faculty as a full professor of pharmacology in 1968. While he was at Yale, Greengard's laboratory performed groundbreaking research, which demonstrated a role for cyclic nucleotides, protein kinases and protein phosphatases, and their protein substrates in the regulation of synaptic transmission. In 1983, Greengard moved to The Rockefeller University, where he has since served as the Vincent Astor Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience. Greengard's paradigm-shifting research has continued at Rockefeller and has informed our understanding and possible treatment of a host of brain disorders, including schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and depression. He is the author of more than 950 research articles and reviews. Greengard has received numerous awards and honors, including the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000, the Metropolitan Life Foundation Award for Medical Research, The National Academy of Sciences Award in Neuroscience, the Ralph W. Gerard Prize in Neuroscience for the Society for Neuroscience, and the Karolinska Institutet's Bicentennial Gold Medal. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

The interview was conducted on May 29, 2012.

[abhishekchatterjee]

I lived in the apartment where he lived in new York City, a nobel laureate, what a pride moment for me actually 14 days

[ramramabhadran]

Paul and Eric,

Good to see both of you. Enjoyed the interview.- Ram

[huangfang]

Paul is amazing, love the interview.