Martha Vaughan | |
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Born | August 4, 1926 |
Died | September 13, 2018 | (aged 92)
Alma mater | University of Chicago Yale School of Medicine |
Spouse | Jack Orloff |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Biochemistry |
Institutions | National Institutes of Health, National Heart Lung and Blood Institute |
Notable students | Ferid Murad |
Martha Vaughan (4 August 1926 – 13 September 2018)[1] was an American biochemist at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. She holds the title of emeritus scientist in the Laboratory of Metabolic Regulation and previously served as chief of NHLBI’s Laboratory of Cellular Metabolism. At the NIH, much of her work has focused on cell signaling, cellular regulation, lipid metabolism, and the identification of key proteins associated with cholera toxin and pertussis toxin. Vaughan first came to the NIH in the agency’s fledgling National Heart Institute, now NHLBI, and with the title of senior assistant surgeon worked on protein synthesis in the Building 3 laboratory of biochemist and public scientist Christian B. Anfinsen, Ph.D., who went on to share the 1972 Nobel Prize in Chemistry[2][3]
Among scientists mentored by Vaughan was 1998 Nobel Laureate Ferid Murad, who in the late 1960s worked as a researcher studying hormone regulation in her NIH laboratory. “She too was an excellent mentor...she gave me considerable freedom,” he said in his Nobel lecture.[4][5]
For more than 6 decades at the NIH, Vaughan was active in professional biochemistry societies and other scientific organizations, serving on various editorial and advisory boards. Over the years, she also held a number of research administrative appointments at the NIH related to translational medicine and cell metabolism and metabolic regulation.