Nobel winner says find is more than just Viagra
By Nicole Foy
Express-News Staff Writer
Dr. Ferid Murad should be a cult god to impotent men
everywhere, but he's content just knowing his medical
advances helped produce one of the more successful
drugs in history: Viagra.
Though he remains impressed by the wild popularity and
importance of the little blue pill, Murad stressed Thursday
his findings in the field of nitric oxide have much broader
implications.
Murad, of the University of Texas Medical School in
Houston, won the Nobel Prize last year for his part in the
discovery that nitric oxide can relax the muscles that
control the body's blood vessels.
He retraced his research, which has spanned almost three
decades, for colleagues of the American Society for
Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, which is meeting
at the San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter hotel.
"Initially (after the Nobel win), it was all about Viagra," he
recalled in an interview after his speech. "But since then,
I've tried to point out that there are situations where
people are surviving because of nitric oxide.
"For example, in premature intensive care units, children
who are only a couple of pounds, who usually would die,
are now surviving because they're given a nasal nitric
oxide spray that improves pulmonary hypertension and
survival rates."
Murad also has been in the spotlight recently because of
his decision to join 66 other Nobel Prize winners in signing
a letter requesting federal funding for controversial stem
cell research.
Stem cells are the recently isolated human cells that
continually divide, producing other cells that can develop
into complete bodily organs, including a heart or liver.
The research is particularly explosive because cells
currently are gathered either from a developing embryo or
from aborted fetuses destined for disposal.
Murad defended his support of stem cell research
Thursday, saying it has potential to treat many forms of
human disease.
"Stem cells are very important as tools in the laboratory,"
he said. "You can't inhibit research, but you have to use
some common sense so that you don't take it in crazy
directions."
On the subject of the rapidly growing field of nitric oxide
research, Murad is excited about the possibility of
producing a host of new drugs to combat everything from
cancer to heart disease.
"I'm amazed at how far this has gone," he said. "We knew
at the time that it is important research, but we didn't
realize it was going to be this important. Still, there's a lot
we don't know — a lot of opportunity lies ahead."
Scientists around the globe now are studying nitric oxide
and its effects. More than 20,000 articles have been
published in the field since the 1970s, Murad said.
The discovery that nitric oxide can alter the function of
other cells represents "an entirely new principle for
signaling in biological systems," the Nobel Assembly noted
in granting the prize to Murad and two other Americans.
Murad shared the 1998 Nobel Prize for Physiology or
Medicine with Robert Furchgott, of the State University of
New York in Brooklyn, and Louis Ignarro, a
pharmacologist at the University of California at Los
Angeles.
Nitric oxide is a common gas better known as an air
pollutant. It differs from nitrous oxide, also known as
laughing gas.
Viagra works against male impotence by using nitric oxide
to relax the smooth muscle in the penis, thereby increasing
blood flow to the organ.
When originally discovered, the idea that any gas could
regulate key functions in cells was revolutionary, Murad
said.
Previously known signaling agents typically were complex
molecules rather than a light gas.
Nitric oxide's properties allow it to pass through
membranes with ease, Murad said.
Thursday, Mar 18,1999
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