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40 Years as a Chemist at the NIH

SUMMARY

John Daly describes his career as "four decades as a chemist at a biomedical institute." The term certainly fits: Daly speaks fluent organic chemistry, recounting reaction mechanisms that he has been involved with, among them landmark findings such as the "NIH shift" (first observed in the enzymatic hydroxylation of phenylalanine) and the function of forskolin as an activator of adenylyl cyclase (now widely used as a tool in signal transduction research). He is a staunch proponent of the power of chemistry to answer biological questions, and privately, he expresses optimism that the biomedical community is now realizing the value of basic chemistry to the future of the pharmacological sciences. Daly’s own career, including well over 500 published papers, is brilliant testimony to the importance of chemistry in forging research paths that lead, often unforeseeably, to a broader appreciation for biological concepts, as well as to concrete tools for the analysis and treatment of human disease. He looks back at his four decades at the NIH with pride and affection for the great scientists he has worked with, and he argues for the importance of the NIH as a continuing model of intellectual collaboration across biomedical disciplines.