Roger Guillemin

Guillemin, Roger (Charles Louis)

(1924–  ) neuroendocrinologist; born in Dijon, France. He was an anti-Nazi resistance fighter in France during World War II, then received his M.D. from Lyons in 1949. He emigrated to the University of Montreal (1951–53), then came to the U.S.A. to join Baylor University (Texas) (1953–70). He collaborated with pioneer endocrinologist Andrew Schally on hypothalamic hormones which regulate the pituitary (1955–62), then continued independently at Baylor and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (1970–89) where he isolated additional pituitary hormones and investigated the action of endorphins. For his many contributions to neuroendocrinology, Guillemin shared one-half the 1977 Nobel Prize in physiology with his former colleague Schally. He continued his work on brain chemistry and hypothalamic hormones at the Whitter Institute for Diabetes and Endocrinology, La Jolla (1989).

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Guillemin, Roger

 

Born Jan. 11, 1924, in Dijon. French physiologist.

Guillemin graduated from the University of Dijon in 1941 and received his M.D. degree from the Faculty of Medicine in Lyon in 1949. From 1949 to 1951 he worked in a hospital in Dijon, and from 1951 to 1953 was assistant professor at the Institute of Experimental Medicine and Surgery of the University of Montreal. Guillemin moved to the United States in 1953. From 1960 to 1963 he was assistant to the director of the endocrinology department at the College de France in Paris. He became professor of physiology at the medical school of Baylor University in Houston, Texas, in 1953 and assistant professor of medicine at the University of California at San Diego in 1970.

Guillemin’s main works deal with the isolation and explanation of the chemical structure and biological activity of hypothalamic hormones, such as the thyrotropin-releasing factor and somatotropic hormones. He shared the Nobel Prize in 1977 with A. V. Schally and R. S. Yalow.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.