A conversation with Elwood Jensen. Interview by David D. Moore.

摘要

Elwood Jensen first described the estrogen receptor in 1958, opening up a new field of hormone action (1). This field expanded along with the nuclear receptor superfamily to incorporate the actions of a wide and still growing range of biological regulators that includes diverse steroids, thyroid hormone, retinoids, bile acids, and even heme. The 48 members of this nuclear receptor family encoded in the human genome impact nearly every facet of our biology. Elwood is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and was a recipient of the 2004 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award "for the discovery of the superfamily of nuclear hormone receptors and elucidation of a unifying mechanism that regulates embryonic development and diverse metabolic pathways." At the Lasker Award ceremony, Nobel laureate Dr. Joseph L. Goldstein described Elwood as "the patriarch of the field" on the basis of "his pioneering work on the estrogen receptor, the matriarch of the superfamily" (2).