Robert F. Furchgott

Robert Francis Furchgott (born June 4, 1916 in Charleston, South Carolina) is a Nobel Prize-winning American biochemist.

Furchgott graduated with a degree in chemistry in 1937 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, received his Ph.D in biochemistry at Northwestern University in 1940. He was faculty member of Washington University School of Medicine from 1949 to 1956. From 1956 to 1988, he was professor of pharmacology at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center.

In 1978, Furchgott discovered a substance in endothelial cells that relaxes blood vessels, calling it endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF). By 1986, he had worked out EDRF's nature and mechanism of action, and determined that EDRF was in fact nitric oxide (NO), an important compound in many aspects of cardiovascular physiology. This research was important in the creation of Viagra.

Aside from the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine he received in 1998, Furchgott has also received a Gairdner Foundation International Award for his groundbreaking discoveries (1991) and the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (1996), the latter with Ferid Murad.

As of 2006, Furchgott lives in Brooklyn and has three children. He continues to serve as a professor emeritus at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center.