Bernard B. Brodie
August 7, 1909 - February 28, 1989
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Scientific Discipline: Physiology and Pharmacology Membership Type:
Member
(elected 1966)
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Bernard B. Brodie was responsible for several developments in the advancement of therapeutic uses of drugs. He established the concepts of drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics, which described how a drug affected the body, the efficacy of the drug, and its duration of action. These concepts made it possible to determine the limitations of therapeutic doses of certain drugs, such as barbiturates. Another one of his important findings was that drugs induced the same level of response in animals and humans. This laid the foundation for animal drug testing in order to determine whether or not the drugs were suitable for human use. Brodie discovered certain drugs (i.e. tranquilizers, sedatives, etc.) affected the balance of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and serotonin. This meant that drugs could be used to raise or lower levels of specific neurotransmitters to elicit a desired response. This discovery led to the creation of antipsychotic drugs, and other medicines used to treat mental and emotional disorders. Brodie’s establishment of chemical pharmacology and his scientific discoveries were major influences for modern medicines and drug treatments.
Brodie was the founder and chief of the Laboratory of Chemical Pharmacology at the National Heart Institute, where he worked for twenty years until his retirement in 1970. He received a B.S. degree from McGill University in 1931, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from New York University in 1935. Brodie taught biochemistry at NYU from 1938 to 1950 before he left to found his laboratory at the National Heart Institute. He was a member of several scientific communities: the American Chemical Society, the American Heart Association, and the International Pharmacological Society among others. For his innovative research in pharmacology, Brodie received the Torald Sollmann Award in Pharmacology from the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics in 1963. In 1967, he was awarded the Albert Lasker Medical Research award for his use of drugs to treat heart, mental, and emotional disorders, as well as cancer. Lastly, Brodie received the nation’s highest scientific honor, the National Medal of Science, in 1968.
