Ignarro Louis - Dr. NO

This elegantly written true story is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the making of a Nobel laureate in Medicine, from early childhood to the awards ceremony in Stockholm. Moreover, Lou Ignarro gets very personal and reveals much about himself and his upbringing. He was the one key person to help me change the world of newborn pediatric medicine by saving thousands of newborns, turning blue babies pink.

Warren Zapol, MD, Professor and Chairman, Dept. of Anesthesia, Massachusetts General Hospital

Lou Ignarro elegantly describes the uphill and circuitous path taken from building sand castles on the beach in New York to receiving the Nobel Prize from the King of Sweden.

Sir Richard Roberts, PhD, biochemist and molecular biologist, New England Biolabs, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1993)

Lou Ignarro has written a compelling autobiography describing how his lifelong pursuit of scientific discovery resulted in winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine. By following his scientific curiosity, this son of Italian immigrants in New York became both a world-renowned scientist and a great educator. This true story of the life of a Nobel laureate is inspirational.

Richard van Breemen, PhD, Endowed Chair and Director of Linus Pauling Institute, Oregon State University

Dr. NO
Copyright 2021 by Louis J. Ignarro, PhD

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherexcept
for brief quotations in printed reviews, without prior permission of the author.

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First edition

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-64112-029-6
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64112-032-6
eBook ISBN: 978-1-64112-030-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

This book is dedicated to the two strongest women in my life- my wife and partner, Dr. Sharon Williams Ignarro, and my mother, Frances Ignarro. Sharon has been my strongest supporter through all the ups and downs of this wild ride in completing my book. She has been my inspiration for healthy living and my enthusiastic coach in all of our athletic endeavors. My mom was by my side for every step of my journey to the pinnacle of scientific research, from dealing with my childhood explosive chemistry experiments to providing motivation to continue my basic research career in medicine. My life has been forever changed by them.

The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.

Tony Robbins

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

Thomas Jefferson

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.

Helen Keller

Logic will get you from point A to point B, but imagination will take you everywhere.

Albert Einstein

T his book is a memoir of my roller coaster ride from building sandcastles on the beach as a small child to receiving the Nobel Prize from the hands of His Majesty King Carl Gustaf of Sweden in 1998.

I discovered science early in life, and my passion for it never waned, steadily growing through my education at Columbia College and the University of Minnesota. I entered the professional world as a basic biomedical researcher in chemical pharmacology. I spent my research career trying to understand the causes, prevention, and treatment of inflammation and cardiovascular disease.

Early on, I learned that one requires thick skin to engage successfully in basic research. Along the way, there are often more downs than ups and an equal number of curveballs and fastballs. Survival depends on motivation, perseverance, and the will to never give up. Success depends on the ability to think outside the box. Discovery depends on getting up every time I fell and leaving a clear trail behind me.

This isnt just a scientists story; its an American story. Only in America can the child of uneducated Italian immigrants start out a struggling student, barely able to speak English, and go on to win the Nobel Prize.

Though I detail my scientific experiments and discoveries, this is ultimately a story of perseverance, teamwork, and awetheres even a couple of love stories. My wish is that as you read this, you will learn not only an intimate view of my path to discovery but also the inspiration and simplicity of science. My greatest hope is that my story will inspire tomorrows scientists to see how they might carve their own path from a beginners chemistry set to winning the Nobel Prize.

T he discovery of Nitric Oxide and its role in the health of the cardiovascular system is an exciting story of the vision and energy of Dr. Lou Ignarro, who rose from humble beginnings to ultimately win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1998. The finding that nitric oxide, or NO gas, had a role in human physiology was proven by Dr. Ignarro through a series of carefully designed studies, first at Tulane University Medical Center and then at UCLA School of Medicine. Through collaboration with a group of distinguished investigators including other Nobel Prize winners over the span of his career, the details of NOs discovery demonstrate how science is advanced by working collaboratively with a community of scientists with diverse expertise. The myth of the lone scientist in the laboratory is no longer possible given the complexity of biomedical research. Still, that observation does not minimize the contributions of the seminal and visionary work of Dr. Lou Ignarro that led to the discovery of a new neurotransmitter that was a gas, which no one believed existed in human cells. Louis Pasteur famously stated that chance the prepared mind. This is certainly the case in the relationship of NO to the invention of drugs like Viagra for erectile dysfunction.

If you are a junior scientist, a young person who aspires to have a scientific career or have an enquiring mind,you will appreciate the rigor of his research strategies over many years and several institutions. He demonstrated for the first time, to the surprise of many, that a gas made of two atoms could be a messenger molecule of immense significance in the body. He had the creative vision that nitric oxide is produced whenever the nervous system is stimulated to increase blood flow and supply oxygen and nutrients to your bodys cells. Dr. Ignarro gathered the specialized technology to prove that nitric oxide is made in the single layer of endothelial cells lining the arteries of all the organs of the body.

In this book, you will get an intimate view of Dr. Ignarros personality, tremendous creative energy, vision, imagination, courage, struggles, and triumphs over the course of his life. You will be taken on an intimate journey of his thoughts and dreams starting from his early childhood interest in chemistry, which resulted in some accidental explosive results, to his ultimate focus on the detailed pharmacology of nitric oxides production and action in cardiovascular health and disease. You will be taken on a detailed journey through the laboratory experiments that proved the importance of NO in relaxing blood vessels to increase blood flow, as well as the collaborations and insights from the work of other scientists that led to the discovery of the role of NO in cardiovascular health and erectile dysfunction. In the process, you will meet many prominent scientists who contributed to Dr. Ignarros journey of discovery. You will experience the thrill of the Nobel Prize award ceremony in Stockholm and the aftermath of the adulation and celebration that followed for Dr. Ignarro.