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In memoriam: Jerry Lingrel

Jerry Lingrel, a longtime associate editor of the Journal of Biological Chemistry and a University of Cincinnati College of Medicine faculty member for almost 60 years, died Feb. 22. He was 84.

Jerry Lingrel

In , Lingrel wrote that as a child he “spent a lot of time watching things grow and being fascinated by the complexity of the structure of different flowers, trying to understand how engines worked … I had a real curiosity about science, but had no idea what real experimental science involved.” Encouraged by an enthusiastic biology teacher, he went to Otterbein College where he majored in biology and chemistry, then earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry from The Ohio State University followed by a postdoc at the California Institute of Technology.

Lingrel joined the faculty of the University of Cincinnati in 1962 and became a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in 1972. He served for 27 years as chair of the department of molecular genetics, biochemistry and microbiology. After stepping down in 2008, he returned to serve as the department’s interim chair from 2014 to 2017.

Lingrel was known for taking a biochemical approach to physiological problems. Recently, his research had focused on a zinc finger transcription factor called Kruppel-like factor 2, or KLF2, that is required for vascular integrity and might play a protective role against atherosclerosis. In years past, his lab cloned the Na,K-ATPase, a major transport protein, and identified specific amino acids involved in binding sodium and potassium as well as those necessary for binding the cardiac stimulant molecule ouabain.

Lingrel’s career spanned disciplines, he wrote, and “while biochemistry has been a very important aspect of this work, I think my research has always had as a focus the use of chemical principles to understand physiological function.” He also stressed the impact of working with others, writing, “we probably have more influence on the individuals we train than we anticipate and clearly mentoring should be taken very seriously.”

In memoriam: Bruce S. McEwen

Neuroscientist Bruce S. McEwen, who made important discoveries about the effects of stress and sex hormones on the brain, died Jan. 2. He was 81. 

Bruce McEwen

McEwen, the Alfred E. Mirsky professor and head of the Harold and Margaret Millikin Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology at The Rockefeller University, worked at the intersection of neurobiology, endocrinology and behavioral science. 

His research changed the way scientists conceived of the brain. 

“When he began his career in the 1960s, most scientists believed that the brain ceases to change when it becomes fully developed, at which point its basic architecture becomes stable,” Rockefeller writer Katherine Fenz. “Research of the day focused largely on ion movements and the transmission of chemical signals across synapses. But McEwen, along with a few other scientists, recognized that the brain is in fact malleable and can be modified by circulating hormones.” 

McEwen discovered adrenal steroid-binding sites in the brain, showed that brain regions not previously linked to hormone or stress regulation, including the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, selectively bind radiolabeled corticosterone, and studied glucocorticoid influences on neuroplasticity. 

McEwen was born in Fort Collins, Colorado, on Jan. 17, 1938. He grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where his father was a professor at the University of Michigan. 

He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Oberlin College in Ohio and then his Ph.D. in cell biology from Rockefeller University in 1964. He did postdoctoral work in Sweden and took a faculty position for a short time at the University of Minnesota. 

He returned to Rockefeller as a faculty member in 1966. He was promoted to professor in 1981 and served as associate dean and then dean of the graduate training program between 1985 and 1993. He was named the Mirsky professor in 1999. 

McEwen won many awards and honors during his career, including the William James Lifetime Achievement Award for Basic Research and the Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine and the American Society of Arts and Sciences. 

He is survived by his wife, neuroimmunologist Karen Bulloch, with whom he collaborated; his former wife, Nancy, and their two daughters, Carolyn and Sarah; stepchildren, Kimberly McGrath and Scott Muryasz; and eight grandchildren.