Susan Leeman

Last updated
Susan Leeman
Born (1930-05-09) May 9, 1930 (age 93)
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Goucher College, Radcliffe College
Known forDiscovery of Substance P and neurotensin
Scientific career
FieldsEndocrinology
Thesis The Problem of Neurohormonal Stimulation of the Secretion of Adrenocorticotropic Hormone (1958)

Susan E. Leeman (born May 9, 1930) is an American endocrinologist who is renowned for her research on peptides. Leeman is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at Boston University. She has continued to work into her nineties and currently serves as the Director of the Neuropeptide Laboratory in the Pharmacology Department at the Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine. [1] Her work with substance P and neurotensin, both of which are peptides crucial to the function of the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems, led to her becoming considered one of the pioneers of neuroendocrinology. Her current research focuses on substance P specifically and how it binds with its receptor. [2] Leeman was elected as a member within the National Academy of Sciences in 1991 and received the Academy’s Fred Conrad Koch Award in 1994. [1] Leeman is a member of the Endocrine Society, Society for Neuroscience, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and American Physiological Society. [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Susan Epstein (later changed to Leeman by marriage) was born on May 9, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. Her mother was born in the United States and her father had emigrated from Russia to New York City. Her father was an academic metallurgist and her mother attended college at George Washington University at a time when few other women did. Susan also had one older brother named Henry. When Susan was six weeks old she and her family moved to Columbus, Ohio, and then to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania when she was six years old. There she grew up a part of a middle class jewish family. [4] She often faced discrimination in the form of antisemitism and sexism as she pursued a career in science. [5]

During her childhood Leeman attended Hebrew School and was a Girl Scout. She decided to attend Goucher College, which was an all-girls’ school at the time, from which she received a bachelor's degree in physiology in 1951. She then applied to and was accepted by Harvard Medical School, but her academic program was administered through Radcliffe College. [4] Thus, Radcliffe College was where she received her master's degree and PhD from in 1954 and 1958 respectively. Leeman was the only woman in her class to make it through the graduate program and continue a career in science. During her time in graduate school she was introduced to the field of neuroendocrinology, within which she was able to explore her passion for how the mind connects to the body. [4] While in graduate school in the 1960s she began working on corticotropin, and while trying to purify this hormone later in her career she made a chance finding of a peptide called substance P. [6] This event subsequently led to her life’s work of researching substance P and another peptide she chemically isolated and defined, neurotensin. [1]

Professional career

Following her graduation in 1958, Susan Leeman was offered a one-year position as an instructor in the Physiology Department at Harvard Medical School. Realizing she was only a fill-in, the following year she took a job at Brandeis University where she stayed for the next 12 years. During this time she received a Career Development Award which helped her to balance her career and family life. [4]

Leeman's research while at Brandeis University mainly focused on the effect a corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) had on the secretion of adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) from the anterior pituitary gland. During her effort to purify the CRF, she discovered a peptide that could stimulate the secretion of saliva. This caused her to switch the direction of the project entirely, as she decided to further investigate this peptide. [4] Eventually Leeman and her lab realized she had unintentionally isolated substance P – a peptide originally discovered by Ulf von Euler in the 1930s, but had yet to be chemically defined. Leeman went on to discover the amino acid sequence of substance P and published her findings in the Journal of Biological Chemistry in 1970. [7] During the purification process of substance P, Leeman and a graduate student of hers discovered a different peptide that was distributed throughout the central nervous system, gastrointestinal tract, and immune system, but had yet to be identified. They decided to name their discovery “neurotensin”. [8]

In 1972, having not yet received a full position, Leeman returned to Harvard Medical School as an assistant professor and continued her studies of substance P and neurotensin in the Laboratory of Human Reproduction and Reproductive Biology until 1980. She then left the medical school when she realised that she would not be offered a tenure there either, gaining a tenured professorship in physiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. [4] In 1992, Leeman left Massachusetts to help start the pharmacology department at Boston University, where she has remained a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics, and the Director of the Neuropeptide Laboratory in the Pharmacology Department at the Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine. [1] [3] As a result of her work Leeman is widely regarded as one of the founders of the field of neuroendocrinology. [6]

Recent Research

Current research projects conducted by Leeman and her lab are centered around the two peptides, substance P and neurotensin, that she originally isolated, sequenced, and synthesized. Her lab at Boston University has multiple goals regarding these neural peptides, including mapping their distribution within the brain and peripheral nervous system, delineating tracts containing substance P or neurotensin within the central nervous system, determining how substance P and neurotensin are released from neural tissue in vitro and in vivo, and identifying the binding domain of substance P with its receptor. [2] [9]

Awards

Susan Leeman became the first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences in physiology and pharmacology in 1991. [3] She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987. [10] In 1993 she won the FASEB Excellence in Science Award and in 2005 won the Committee on Women in Neuroscience's Mika Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award. [3] [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corticotropin-releasing hormone</span> Mammalian protein found in humans

Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) is a peptide hormone involved in stress responses. It is a releasing hormone that belongs to corticotropin-releasing factor family. In humans, it is encoded by the CRH gene. Its main function is the stimulation of the pituitary synthesis of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), as part of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paraventricular nucleus of hypothalamus</span>

The paraventricular nucleus is a nucleus in the hypothalamus. Anatomically, it is adjacent to the third ventricle and many of its neurons project to the posterior pituitary. These projecting neurons secrete oxytocin and a smaller amount of vasopressin, otherwise the nucleus also secretes corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH). CRH and TRH are secreted into the hypophyseal portal system and act on different targets neurons in the anterior pituitary. PVN is thought to mediate many diverse functions through these different hormones, including osmoregulation, appetite, and the response of the body to stress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Candace Pert</span> American neuroscientist (1946–2013)

Candace Beebe Pert was an American neuroscientist and pharmacologist who discovered the opioid receptor, the cellular binding site for endorphins in the brain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neuropeptide</span> Peptides released by neurons as intercellular messengers

Neuropeptides are chemical messengers made up of small chains of amino acids that are synthesized and released by neurons. Neuropeptides typically bind to G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) to modulate neural activity and other tissues like the gut, muscles, and heart.

Neuroendocrine cells are cells that receive neuronal input and, as a consequence of this input, release messenger molecules (hormones) into the blood. In this way they bring about an integration between the nervous system and the endocrine system, a process known as neuroendocrine integration. An example of a neuroendocrine cell is a cell of the adrenal medulla, which releases adrenaline to the blood. The adrenal medullary cells are controlled by the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system. These cells are modified postganglionic neurons. Autonomic nerve fibers lead directly to them from the central nervous system. The adrenal medullary hormones are kept in vesicles much in the same way neurotransmitters are kept in neuronal vesicles. Hormonal effects can last up to ten times longer than those of neurotransmitters. Sympathetic nerve fiber impulses stimulate the release of adrenal medullary hormones. In this way the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system and the medullary secretions function together.

Neuroendocrinology is the branch of biology which studies the interaction between the nervous system and the endocrine system; i.e. how the brain regulates the hormonal activity in the body. The nervous and endocrine systems often act together in a process called neuroendocrine integration, to regulate the physiological processes of the human body. Neuroendocrinology arose from the recognition that the brain, especially the hypothalamus, controls secretion of pituitary gland hormones, and has subsequently expanded to investigate numerous interconnections of the endocrine and nervous systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urocortin</span>

Urocortin is a protein that in humans is encoded by the UCN gene. Urocortin belongs to the corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) family of proteins which includes CRF, urotensin I, sauvagine, urocortin II and urocortin III. Urocortin is involved in the mammalian stress response, and regulates aspects of appetite and stress response.

Urocortin III, a 38–41 amino acid peptide, is a member of the CRF, also known as CRH family of peptides, with a long evolutionary lineage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neurotensin</span> Chemical compound

Neurotensin is a 13 amino acid neuropeptide that is implicated in the regulation of luteinizing hormone and prolactin release and has significant interaction with the dopaminergic system. Neurotensin was first isolated from extracts of bovine hypothalamus based on its ability to cause a visible vasodilation in the exposed cutaneous regions of anesthetized rats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enteroendocrine cell</span>

Enteroendocrine cells are specialized cells of the gastrointestinal tract and pancreas with endocrine function. They produce gastrointestinal hormones or peptides in response to various stimuli and release them into the bloodstream for systemic effect, diffuse them as local messengers, or transmit them to the enteric nervous system to activate nervous responses. Enteroendocrine cells of the intestine are the most numerous endocrine cells of the body. They constitute an enteric endocrine system as a subset of the endocrine system just as the enteric nervous system is a subset of the nervous system. In a sense they are known to act as chemoreceptors, initiating digestive actions and detecting harmful substances and initiating protective responses. Enteroendocrine cells are located in the stomach, in the intestine and in the pancreas. Microbiota play key roles in the intestinal immune and metabolic responses in these enteroendocrine cells via their fermentation product, acetate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Koob</span> American academic

George F. Koob is a Professor and former Chair of the Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders at the Scripps Research Institute and Adjunct Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego. In 2014 he became the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine</span> Private medical school in Boston, Massachusetts, US

Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine (CAMED), formerly known as Boston University School of Medicine, is the medical school of Boston University, a private research university in Boston. It was founded in 1848. The medical school was the first institution in the world to formally educate female physicians. Originally known as the New England Female Medical College, it was subsequently renamed Boston University School of Medicine in 1873, then Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine in 2022. In 1864, it became the first medical school in the United States to award an M.D. degree to an African-American woman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor 1</span> Protein and coding gene in humans

Corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor 1 (CRHR1) is a protein, also known as CRF1, with the latter (CRF1) now being the IUPHAR-recommended name. In humans, CRF1 is encoded by the CRHR1 gene at region 17q21.31, beside micrototubule-associated protein tau MAPT.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pexacerfont</span> Chemical compound

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meclinertant</span> Chemical compound

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Parvocellular neurosecretory cells are small neurons that produce hypothalamic releasing and inhibiting hormones. The cell bodies of these neurons are located in various nuclei of the hypothalamus or in closely related areas of the basal brain, mainly in the medial zone of the hypothalamus. All or most of the axons of the parvocellular neurosecretory cells project to the median eminence, at the base of the brain, where their nerve terminals release the hypothalamic hormones. These hormones are then immediately absorbed into the blood vessels of the hypothalamo-pituitary portal system, which carry them to the anterior pituitary gland, where they regulate the secretion of hormones into the systemic circulation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tilli Tansey</span>

Elizabeth Matilda Tansey is an Emerita Professor of the history of medicine and former neurochemist, best known for her role in the Wellcome Trust's witness seminars. She previously worked at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL).

Sauvagine is a neuropeptide from the corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) family of peptides and is orthologous to the mammalian hormone, urocortin 1, and the teleost fish hormone, urotensin 1. It is 40 amino acids in length, and has the sequence XGPPISIDLSLELLRKMIEIEKQEKEKQQAANNRLLLDTI-NH2, with a pyrrolidone carboxylic acid modification at the N-terminal and amidation of the C-terminal isoleucine residue. It was originally isolated from the skin of the frog Phyllomedusa sauvagii. Given its relation to other CRF-related peptides, it exerts similar physiological effects as corticotropin-releasing hormone.

Rae Silver is a Canadian behavioral neuroendocrinologist and neuroscientist best known for her research on the role of the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus in generating circadian rhythms, the role of mast cells in the brain, the physiological mechanisms of parental behavior in ring doves. She is currently the Helene L. and Mark N. Kaplan Professor of Natural & Physical Sciences and is currently the Chair of the Neuroscience Program and Professor of Psychology at Barnard College. In addition, she is jointly appointed as a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Columbia University and in the Department of Pathology and Cell Biology with the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suzanne Dickson</span>

Suzanne L Dickson is a neurobiologist and Professor of Neuroendocrinology in the Department of Physiology within the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. She graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a B.Sc. (honours) in Pharmacology. Her doctorate research was undertaken at the Babraham Institute with Professor Gareth Leng and she graduated with a Ph.D. in Neuroendocrinology from the University of Cambridge in 1993. She is also an Honorary Professor in the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine at the University of Edinburgh.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Susan Leeman | Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine". www.bumc.bu.edu. Retrieved 2023-11-24.
  2. 1 2 "Susan E. Leeman, PhD | Neuroscience". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2023-11-24.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Kaufman, Ron (17 May 1993). "BU Professor Wins FASEB Women's Science Award". The Scientist. Retrieved 31 July 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Squire, Larry R, ed. (2009-03-01). The History of Neuroscience in Autobiography Volume 6. Oxford University Press. pp. 320–339. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195380101.001.0001. ISBN   978-0-19-538010-1.
  5. Dolores Kong (10 June 1991). "Women complain of bias at medical schools". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on 21 September 2014. Retrieved 31 July 2014 via HighBeam.
  6. 1 2 Wayne, Tiffany (2010). American Women of Science Since 1900. Vol. 2. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 607–608. ISBN   978-1-59884-158-9 . Retrieved 24 November 2023.
  7. Chang, Michael M.; Leeman, Susan E. (25 September 1970). "Isolation of a Sialogogic Peptide from Bovine Hypothalamic Tissue and Its Characterization as Substance P". Journal of Biological Chemistry. 245 (18): 4784–4790. doi: 10.1016/s0021-9258(18)62860-1 . ISSN   0021-9258.
  8. Enna, S.J.; Bylund, David (2008). xPharm: The Comprehensive Pharmacology Reference. Elsevier Masson. ISBN   978-0-08-055232-3.
  9. "RePORT ⟩ RePORTER". reporter.nih.gov. Retrieved 2023-11-24.
  10. "Susan Epstein Leeman". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  11. Perfetuo, Kristen (18 November 2005). "BUSM Pharmacology Professor Wins Women in Neuroscience's Lifetime Achievement Award". Boston University Public Relations. Retrieved 31 July 2014.