Candace Pert
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Candace Beebe Pert (born 26th July 1946) is a neuroscientist who discovered the opiate receptor, the cellular bonding site for endorphins in the brain. In 1974 she earned a Ph.D. in pharmacology from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the laboratory of Solomon Snyder. Previously, she had completed her undergraduate studies, in biology, cum laude, in 1970, from Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Dr. Pert conducted a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship with the Department of Pharmacology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine from 1974-1975. She did research at the National Institutes of Health from 1975–1987. Pert is the author of Molecules of Emotion. She appeared as one of the experts in Bill Moyers 1993 PBS video production, "Healing and the Mind", and in the controversial 2004 film What the #$*! Do We Know!?.
After 1975, Dr. Pert held a variety of research positions with the National Institutes of Health, and until 1987, served as Chief of the Section on Brain Biochemistry of the Clinical Neuroscience Branch of the NIMH. She then founded and directed a private biotech laboratory. Dr. Pert currently holds a Research Professorship in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, DC.
Dr. Pert is an internationally recognized pharmacologist who has published over 250 scientific articles on peptides and their receptors and the role of these neuropeptides in the immune system. Her earliest work as a researcher involved the discovery of opiate receptors and the actions of receptors. She has an international reputation in the field of neuropeptide and receptor pharmacology, and chemical neuroanatomy. Dr. Pert has also lectured worldwide on these and other subjects, including her theories on emotions and mind-body communication. Her recent popular book, "Molecules of Emotion, Why You Feel the Way You Feel", (Scribner, September 1997) expounds on her research and theories. She was recently featured in "Washingtonian" magazine (Dec. 2001) as one of Washington's fifty "Best and Brightest" individuals. She holds a number of patents for modified peptides in the treatment of psoriasis, Alzheimer's disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, stroke and head trauma. One of these, peptide T, is currently undergoing research, in the United States, for the treatment of AIDS and neuroAIDS.
Books
- Molecules Of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine, Scribner, 1999, ISBN 0684846349
External references and links
- [Candace Pert web site]
- [Candace Pert MP3 audio] - from Shift in Action, sponsored by Institute of Noetic Sciences
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