Julius Axelrod American biochemist and pharmacologist, Nobel Prize laureate in physiology or medicine Date of Birth: 30.05.1912 Country: USA

Biography of Julius Axelrod

Julius Axelrod, an American biochemist and pharmacologist, was born on May 30, 1912, in New York. He graduated from college in New York in 1933 with a Bachelor's degree and began working as an assistant in the bacteriology laboratory at the New York University Medical School. In 1935, while working as a chemist in the industrial hygiene laboratory, he enrolled in the medical faculty at the university.

In 1941, he completed his Master's degree and continued his research in the laboratory, where he met Professor Bernard Brodie. This encounter had a significant impact on Julius Axelrod's scientific career, as he eventually joined the Third Research Department of the New York University at the Goldwater Hospital, where Professor Brodie was already working.

In 1949, Axelrod and Brodie moved to the National Institute of Cardiology in the Department of Chemical Pharmacology. After four years, Axelrod became the lead chemist and two years later, he headed the Department of Pharmacology at the Clinical Trials Laboratory at the National Institute of Mental Health. In 1955, with the support of Paul Smith, a professor of pharmacology at George Washington University, he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation.

Axelrod's main research focus, along with Brodie, was on amphetamines, stimulants of the nervous system that are similar to catecholamine compounds, derivatives of pyrocatechin. These compounds actively participate in physiological and biochemical processes in the body. By the early 1950s, adrenaline had already been discovered from catecholamines, and in 1946, Swedish physiologist Ulf von Euler isolated norepinephrine, proving that it was the neurotransmitter of the nervous system. All catecholamines reflect and determine the state of the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system, play an important role in neurohumoral regulation, and participate in metabolism and adaptive reactions, ensuring the constancy of the internal environment and physiological functions.

When Axelrod became interested in stimulators of the nervous system, scientists had limited knowledge about the metabolism of catecholamines in the body. Through a series of studies, Axelrod isolated catechol-O-methyltransferase, one of the two enzymes responsible for the breakdown of catecholamines. In the course of further work, Axelrod and his group demonstrated that the impulse transmission through catecholamines ends with the beginning of their reuptake into the presynaptic fiber.

In 1954, English biophysicist Bernard Katz described the structure of synapses, including the vesicles containing acetylcholine. Katz suggested that upon fusion of the vesicle with the synaptic membrane, one portion (quantum) of the mediator is released, which interacts with the muscle cell, causing a single weak potential in the endplate of the muscle fiber. As a result of research conducted by Axelrod's group, it was found that a similar type of release is characteristic of norepinephrine. Such release is due to the large number of vesicles containing catecholamines in the presynaptic area. Upon fusion of the vesicle with the synaptic membrane, one portion of the mediator is also released. Axelrod's work on the effects of psychotropic drugs on the human body showed that cocaine and reserpine alter the content of catecholamines in vesicles and influence the rate of catecholamine release upon vesicle fusion.

In principle, both hormones and mediators are biologically active substances produced in the body by specialized cells, tissues, or organs, and they have a targeted effect on the activity of other organs and tissues. Julius Axelrod studied the influence of mediators on hormone production and the influence of hormones on the release of mediators. In 1970, Julius Axelrod, along with Sir Bernard Katz and Ulf von Euler, became a Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the humoral transmitters in the nerve terminals and the mechanisms for their storage, release, and inactivation."

Among his awards, Axelrod received the National Science Foundation Award (1958), the International Physiological Society Award (1961), the Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award (Association for Mental Illness, 1965), the Gardner Foundation Award (1967), and the Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award (George Washington University, 1968). He was a Corresponding Member of the German Pharmacological Society, an honorary doctor at the University of Chicago, a member of the International Brain Research Organization, the American Chemical Society, the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, the American Society of Chemical Biologists, and a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.