Betty Twarog

Betty Twarog (August 28, 1927 – February 6, 2013) was an American biochemist who discovered serotonin in 1952, which clarified previous earlier discoveries.

Early life and career

She was born on August 28, 1927 in New York City.^[1] She attended Swarthmore College from 1944 to 1948, focusing on mathematics. She wrote the paper that mentioned these discoveries in 1954, and it was called the Journal of Cellular and Comparative Physiology. She worked with Irvine Page on whether neurotransmitters found in invertebrates could be found in vertebrates.^[2] She finished her graduate studies at Harvard in 1952. She left the Cleveland Clinic in 1954 and continued to work on invertebrate smooth muscle at other colleges. In later years she tried to discover how shellfish can evade poisons that phytoplankton produce. She died on February 6, 2013, at the age of 85 in Damariscotta, Maine.^[3]

Impact in science and medicine

Shortly after the decade in which she discovered it, serotonin became known as a substance that can direct messages in humans that have to do with social interactions. This discovery, which came in 1968, and led to the creation of antidepressant SSRI medicines in 1978 (i.e. fluoxetine and sertraline) is based on the fact that serotonin is found to be active in humans. Twarog's research helped change how scientists think about neurotransmitters.

Fluoxetine was approved by the FDA in 1988, while sertraline was approved in 1991, and continue to be used today as agents which can induce changes in the mind to help individuals with chemical deficiencies of serotonin, and that helps people become more social.

Twarog did not directly have much to do with the creation of these medicines, but her work on the function of serotonin in invertebrates was crucial to their development.

References