Ferid Murad

He met Carol Ann Leopold, an English and Spanish major at DePauw, in 1957. They got married on June 21, 1958. The couple has four daughters and one son.

Ferid Murad was born on September 14, 1936, in Whiting, Indiana, to Jabir Murat Ejupi (later known as John Murad), an Albanian immigrant from Gostivar, Macedonia, and Henrietta Bowman, an American Christian. He had two younger brothers and grew up in Whiting, Indiana, where his parents operated a restaurant.

Since his parents were not much educated, Ferid himself was determined to get as much formal education as possible. He was hard working and determined from a young age, traits he inherited from his parents. As a school student, he used to help his parents in operating the restaurant.

He knew from the age of 12 that he was meant to be a doctor. However, his parents did not have enough funds to send him to medical college after high school and he started looking for scholarships.

A bright student, he earned a Rector Scholarship at DePauw University in Greencastle and received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the pre-med program in 1958. Then on the suggestion of a mentor he joined a new MD-Ph.D. program at Case Western Reserve University and earned his MD and pharmacology Ph.D. in 1965.

He interned in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital during 1965-66, and served as a Resident in Internal Medicine (1966-67). He then proceeded to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a Clinical Associate and Senior Assistant Surgeon, Public Health Service, National Heart and Lung Institute in 1967. He spent three years there researching in Martha Vaughan's laboratory.

In 1970, he joined the new Clinical Pharmacology Division in the Department of Medicine in the University of Virginia as an Associate Professor in medicine and pharmacology. Over the course of his highly productive career there, he became the Director of their Clinical Research Center in 1971 and the Director of Clinical Pharmacology in 1973. He was promoted to full professorship in 1975.

During the 1970s, he focused on researching cyclic GMP (cyclic guanosine monophosphate) and collaborated with other scientists to conduct the first experiments with the biological effects of nitric oxide (NO). In 1977, he successfully demonstrated that nitroglycerin and several related heart drugs induce the formation of nitric oxide—the colorless and odorless gas that promotes an increase in the diameter of blood vessels in the body.

The significant research done by Murad provided the basis for the works of scientists Robert F. Furchgott and Louis J. Ignarro who built on Murad’s works to arrive at some very important discoveries that not only led to improved treatment of cardiovascular diseases, but also indirectly led to the development of anti-impotency drugs.

Ferid Murad accepted the position of Chief of Medicine at the Palo Alto VA Medical Center, Stanford University in 1981, a position he held until 1986. From 1986 to 1988, he served as Acting Chairman of Medicine.

Ferid Murad performed significant research on cyclic guanosine monophosphate (GMP) which is formed by an enzyme when it is activated by nitroglycerin. He demonstrated that nitroglycerin produced this effect by emitting nitrous oxide (NO). His work set the pace for further research that determined cyclic GMP as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system.