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Seymour Kety: the NIH years
Clinical Neuroscience Research 1 (2001) 6±7
www.elsevier.nl/locate/clires
Obituary
Seymour Kety: the NIH years
In 1951 Seymour Kety left the University of Pennsylvania to become the ®rst Scienti®c Director of the National Institutes of Mental Health and of Neurological Diseases, setting up their intramural research programs. In 1956, he deliberately `demoted' himself to Chief of the Laboratory of Clinical Science in NIMH, a position he maintained until 1967 when he moved to Harvard. His NIH tenure was interrupted by a 9-month stint as Chairman of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins in 1961±1962. At Penn Seymour had conducted his epochal studies of cerebral circulation. The NIH years saw the ¯owering of Seymour as a scienti®c statesman and one of the few medical scientists one can label with no equivocation as a very special mensch. Several episodes highlight Seymour's vision, wisdom and extraordinary integrity. The Laboratory of Clinical Science was organized as a group of sections covering a broad range of scienti®c disciplines which might be brought to bear in attacking the big questions in psychiatry. Roger McDonald and then Irv Kopin headed the Section on Medicine, Lou Sokoloff, the Section on Cerebral Metabolism, Marion Kies, a Section on Biochemistry, Ed Evarts, the Section on Neurophysiology, Jack Durrell, the Section on Psychiatry, and Julie Axelrod, the Section on Pharmacology. Additionally there were two research wards, three West for Psychiatric patients and two West for normal controls. In the late 1950s there were numerous reports of `the chemical abnormality' in schizophrenia. Seymour reviewed the literature critically and, in 1959 authored a classic review in Science magazine. One of the most publicized observations, by Abraham Hoffer, stemmed from reports that if one let epinephrine stand on the shelf, it turned pink because of oxidation to adrenochrome and, when injected into humans, caused hallucinations. Hoffer maintained that schizophrenics made more adrenochrome than normals. Seymour felt it important to test this hypothesis and at the same time to do good basic research. He contracted with the ¯edgling New England Nuclear Company to synthesize [ 3H]epinephrine. Irv Kopin, Seymour's postdoctoral fellow, developed an ingenious approach to determine the relative roles of monoamine
oxidase and catechol-O-methyltransferase in the metabolism of epinephrine by administering subjects a mixture of [ 3H]epinephrine and [ 14C]metaphrine leading to a classic paper in Science. Though Seymour had made substantial contributions and was the mentor, he refused to be an author saying, `I don't want people in the future to call this the Kety method'. There were numerous other instances in which Seymour declined to be included as an author even if he had made a major contribution. Seymour offered some of the [ 3H]epinephrine to Julie Axelrod. Together with Hans Weil-Malherbe, Julie found that [ 3H]epinephrine persisted a long while unchanged in the heart and spleen, organs enriched in sympathetic nerve endings. Together with George Hertting and Kopin, Julie cut the sympathetic innervation to the nicitating membrane and demonstrated a loss of catecholamine uptake establishing that reuptake of released catecholamines accounts for inactivation, one of the key ®ndings for which Julie received the Nobel Prize in 1970. Seymour's wisdom and integrity were evident during his brief tenure at Johns Hopkins. Though he had no residency training in psychiatry, he accepted the Chair of Psychiatry, a prestigious post. Within a few months he could see that such a position made no sense for him. Though he could have remained at Hopkins and likely done a credible job, Seymour knew that the right thing to do was to acknowledge what he felt was a mistake, which he did promptly and graciously. Seymour was not merely an administrator at the NIH. He could see that the genetics of mental illness was a most important challenge in psychiatry. Together with David Rosenthal and Fini Schulsinger, Seymour launched groundbreaking studies of the genetics of schizophrenia. Their extraordinary initial ®ndings were announced at a meeting in Dorado Beach, Puerto Rico. Seymour insisted that the funding organization support attendance at the meeting of young research psychiatrists who had done no work in the genetics of mental illness but who, Seymour felt, needed to learn about the area. I was one of the fortunate attendees whose career was in¯uenced by the meeting. Chalk up one more for Seymour Kety, a great human being.
1566-2772/01/$ - see front matter q 2001 Published by Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease PII: S15 66-2772(00)0002 0-7
S.H. Snyder / Clinical Neuroscience Research 1 (2001) 6±7
Acknowledgements The author is grateful to Julius Axelrod and Irwin Kopin for sharing their reminiscences.
7
Solomon H. Snyder, MD Department of Neuroscience, John Hopkins University, School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21209, USA.
www.elsevier.nl/locate/clires
Obituary
Seymour Kety: the NIH years
In 1951 Seymour Kety left the University of Pennsylvania to become the ®rst Scienti®c Director of the National Institutes of Mental Health and of Neurological Diseases, setting up their intramural research programs. In 1956, he deliberately `demoted' himself to Chief of the Laboratory of Clinical Science in NIMH, a position he maintained until 1967 when he moved to Harvard. His NIH tenure was interrupted by a 9-month stint as Chairman of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins in 1961±1962. At Penn Seymour had conducted his epochal studies of cerebral circulation. The NIH years saw the ¯owering of Seymour as a scienti®c statesman and one of the few medical scientists one can label with no equivocation as a very special mensch. Several episodes highlight Seymour's vision, wisdom and extraordinary integrity. The Laboratory of Clinical Science was organized as a group of sections covering a broad range of scienti®c disciplines which might be brought to bear in attacking the big questions in psychiatry. Roger McDonald and then Irv Kopin headed the Section on Medicine, Lou Sokoloff, the Section on Cerebral Metabolism, Marion Kies, a Section on Biochemistry, Ed Evarts, the Section on Neurophysiology, Jack Durrell, the Section on Psychiatry, and Julie Axelrod, the Section on Pharmacology. Additionally there were two research wards, three West for Psychiatric patients and two West for normal controls. In the late 1950s there were numerous reports of `the chemical abnormality' in schizophrenia. Seymour reviewed the literature critically and, in 1959 authored a classic review in Science magazine. One of the most publicized observations, by Abraham Hoffer, stemmed from reports that if one let epinephrine stand on the shelf, it turned pink because of oxidation to adrenochrome and, when injected into humans, caused hallucinations. Hoffer maintained that schizophrenics made more adrenochrome than normals. Seymour felt it important to test this hypothesis and at the same time to do good basic research. He contracted with the ¯edgling New England Nuclear Company to synthesize [ 3H]epinephrine. Irv Kopin, Seymour's postdoctoral fellow, developed an ingenious approach to determine the relative roles of monoamine
oxidase and catechol-O-methyltransferase in the metabolism of epinephrine by administering subjects a mixture of [ 3H]epinephrine and [ 14C]metaphrine leading to a classic paper in Science. Though Seymour had made substantial contributions and was the mentor, he refused to be an author saying, `I don't want people in the future to call this the Kety method'. There were numerous other instances in which Seymour declined to be included as an author even if he had made a major contribution. Seymour offered some of the [ 3H]epinephrine to Julie Axelrod. Together with Hans Weil-Malherbe, Julie found that [ 3H]epinephrine persisted a long while unchanged in the heart and spleen, organs enriched in sympathetic nerve endings. Together with George Hertting and Kopin, Julie cut the sympathetic innervation to the nicitating membrane and demonstrated a loss of catecholamine uptake establishing that reuptake of released catecholamines accounts for inactivation, one of the key ®ndings for which Julie received the Nobel Prize in 1970. Seymour's wisdom and integrity were evident during his brief tenure at Johns Hopkins. Though he had no residency training in psychiatry, he accepted the Chair of Psychiatry, a prestigious post. Within a few months he could see that such a position made no sense for him. Though he could have remained at Hopkins and likely done a credible job, Seymour knew that the right thing to do was to acknowledge what he felt was a mistake, which he did promptly and graciously. Seymour was not merely an administrator at the NIH. He could see that the genetics of mental illness was a most important challenge in psychiatry. Together with David Rosenthal and Fini Schulsinger, Seymour launched groundbreaking studies of the genetics of schizophrenia. Their extraordinary initial ®ndings were announced at a meeting in Dorado Beach, Puerto Rico. Seymour insisted that the funding organization support attendance at the meeting of young research psychiatrists who had done no work in the genetics of mental illness but who, Seymour felt, needed to learn about the area. I was one of the fortunate attendees whose career was in¯uenced by the meeting. Chalk up one more for Seymour Kety, a great human being.
1566-2772/01/$ - see front matter q 2001 Published by Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease PII: S15 66-2772(00)0002 0-7
S.H. Snyder / Clinical Neuroscience Research 1 (2001) 6±7
Acknowledgements The author is grateful to Julius Axelrod and Irwin Kopin for sharing their reminiscences.
7
Solomon H. Snyder, MD Department of Neuroscience, John Hopkins University, School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21209, USA.