Ernst Knobil
The University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center
September 20, 1926 - April 13, 2000
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Scientific Discipline: Physiology and Pharmacology Membership Type:
Member
(elected 1986)
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Ernst Knobil made seminal contributions to our understanding of endocrine systems. His research dealt primarily with the analysis of integrative aspects of endocrine systems, of relationships between steroids and their peptide control systems, and of comparative aspects of endocrinology. Using sensitive protein-binding displacement techniques, Knobil’s lab defined the sequence of hormone release underlying the reproductive cycle in primates. This work led to the development of pulsatile LHRH therapy, a clinical procedure that made ovulation and pregnancy possible for infertile women and led to the development of the birth control pill. His discovery that growth hormone was species specific led to therapies for pituitary dwarfism.
Knobil attended Cornell University, receiving his B.S. in 1948 and his Ph.D. in 1951. He began working as an instructor in physiology at Harvard Medical School in 1953, becoming an associate professor in 1955 and an assistant professor in 1957. Knobil left Harvard in 1961 to accept a position as the Richard Beatty Mellon Professor of Physiology and Chairman of the Department at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, which he held for the next two decades. From 1974 to 1981, he served as director of the university’s Center for Research in Primate Reproduction. He became Dean of the University of Texas Medical School at Houston in 1981, as well as the H. Wayne Hightower Professor in Medical Sciences and Director of the Laboratory for Neuroendocrinology at the university’s Health Science Center. In 1989, Knobil was appointed the Ashbel Smith Professor of the University of Texas Houston Health Science Center. He was extremely active in the scientific community, serving on numerous advisory boards, having membership in many societies, and giving a long list of lectureships. Knobil received, among several others, the CIBA Award and the Fred Conrad Koch Award of the Endocrine Society in 1961 and 1982, respectively, the Carl G. Hartman Award of the Society for the Study of Reproduction in 1983, and the Axel Munthe Award in the Field of Reproduction in 1985.
