Richard Wurtman (March 9, 1936 – December 13, 2022) was an American neuroscientist who spent his career doing basic and translational neuroscience research at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
.
Early life and education
Richard Wurtman earned his undergraduate degree at
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
and then went to Harvard Medical School, where he earned his MD in 1960. He did a two year residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, and then joined
Julius Axelrod
Julius Axelrod (May 30, 1912 – December 29, 2004) was an American biochemist. He won a share of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1970 along with Bernard Katz and Ulf von Euler. The Nobel Committee honored him for his work on the re ...
's lab at the
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
, which was pioneering studies of neurotransmitters and the ways that drugs affect them.
Career
In 1967
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
invited him to open a lab to continue the NIH work in the Department of Nutrition and Food Science, which was the only department doing ''in vivo'' work at the time. In the 1980s MIT formed a new department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, which pulled together people working on psychology, neuroscience, and neuroscience, and Wurtman joined it.
[
In 1994 he was appointed the first Cecil H. Green Distinguished Professor at MIT, and by that time was also a Professor of Neuroscience in MIT’s Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences, and a Professor of ]Neuropharmacology
Neuropharmacology is the study of how drugs affect function in the nervous system, and the neural mechanisms through which they influence behavior. There are two main branches of neuropharmacology: behavioral and molecular. Behavioral neuropharmac ...
in the Harvard–MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology.
Wurtman retired in 2011, and by that time he had published around 1,000 papers and trained around 300 students and post-docs.[
]
Notable findings
Much of Wurtman's work at MIT involved discovering a new function of an existing biomolecule, like a hormone
A hormone (from the Greek participle , "setting in motion") is a class of signaling molecules in multicellular organisms that are sent to distant organs by complex biological processes to regulate physiology and behavior. Hormones are require ...
or neurotransmitter, figuring out how that discovery might be useful in medicine, and then trying to use that biomolecule as a drug itself, or using an existing drug to affect its function, a strategy called drug repurposing. His early affiliation with people in nutrition and food science also led him to consider ways that food and nutrient affect health.[
Wurtman was involved in the evaluations of aspartame when it was first being introduced as an artificial sweetener; he initially testified on behalf of its manufacturer that it was safe, but subsequent research led him to call, in 1983, for further testing due to his concerns that consuming large amounts (not small amounts) could be harmful.
In 1994 his lab published work showing that melatonin is a ]hormone
A hormone (from the Greek participle , "setting in motion") is a class of signaling molecules in multicellular organisms that are sent to distant organs by complex biological processes to regulate physiology and behavior. Hormones are require ...
, secreted at night-time, needed for the induction & maintenance of normal sleep.
Along with Nicholas Zervas of Beth Israel Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...
, another early area of Wurtman's research pertained to the neurotransmitter dopamine, and its role in stroke physiology. Wurtman's studies occurred at a time of significant growth in research and understanding of neurotransmitters, with optimistic expectations for practical outcomes.
In the 2000s his lab started exploring food components that could help maintain or improve the health of the brain, focusing on choline, uridine, and the omega-3 fatty acid DHA; this work became incorporated into the medical food
Medical foods are foods that are specially formulated and intended for the dietary management of a disease that has distinctive nutritional needs that cannot be met by normal diet alone. In the United States they were defined in the Food and Drug A ...
product, Souvenaid.
Serotoninergic synapses are thus a useful target for drugs to treat obesity
Obesity is a medical condition, sometimes considered a disease, in which excess body fat has accumulated to such an extent that it may negatively affect health. People are classified as obese when their body mass index (BMI)—a person's ...
and other conditions which affect appetite and mood (e.g. premenstrual syndrome; seasonal depression). The patent for using fluoxetine to treat premenstrual dysphoric disorder
Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is a mood disorder characterized by emotional, cognitive, and physical symptoms that cause significant distress or impairment in menstruating women during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. The symptom ...
was licensed to Wurtman's startup, Interneuron, which in turn sold them to Lilly. This became the product marketed as Sarafem.
Commercial activities
Wurtman co-founded Interneuron Pharmaceuticals in 1988,[BioCentury listing for Indevus]
Page accessed May 13, 2016 which was renamed to Indevus in 2002. Indevus brought an in-licensed product, Trospium chloride, to market before being acquired by Endo Pharmaceuticals
Endo International plc is an American Irish-domiciled generics and specialty branded pharmaceutical company that generated over 93% of its 2017 sales from the U.S. healthcare system. While Endo's management, operations, and customers are almost ...
in 2009 for $370 million in cash and $267 million in milestones.[
Wurtman's patent on using ]dexfenfluramine
Dexfenfluramine, marketed as dexfenfluramine hydrochloride under the name Redux, is a serotonergic anorectic drug: it reduces appetite by increasing the amount of extracellular serotonin in the brain. It is the d- enantiomer of fenfluramine an ...
, an isomer of fenfluramine
Fenfluramine, sold under the brand name Fintepla, is a serotonergic medication used for the treatment of seizures associated with Dravet syndrome and Lennox–Gastaut syndrome.https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2022/212102s003lb ...
, to suppress appetite was also licensed to Interneuron, which licensed the patents to Wyeth
Wyeth, LLC was an American pharmaceutical company. The company was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1860 as ''John Wyeth and Brother''. It was later known, in the early 1930s, as American Home Products, before being renamed to Wyeth in ...
; this drug was withdrawn from the market in 1997 after " Phen-fen" was found to be harmful.[
Wurtman also founded Back Bay Scientific, Inc. along with his wife and daughter; the company sells dietary supplements.]
Publications
Among Wurtman's publications are the following:
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wurtman, Richard
1936 births
2022 deaths
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty
Harvard University faculty
American neuroscientists
American pharmacologists
University of Pennsylvania alumni
Harvard Medical School alumni
Scientists from Philadelphia