Dr. Furchgott was born in Charleston, S.C. He received a B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of North Carolina in 1937 and a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from Northwestern University in 1940. He taught at the Cornell University College of Medicine in the Department of Pharmacology from 1949-1956.

Dr. Furchgott served as professor and chairman of the Department of Pharmacology at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center (now SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn) from 1956-1982, and is presently distinguished professor emeritus.

Since 1989, he has also been adjunct professor of pharmacology at the University of Miami School of Medicine.

Dr. Furchgott is recognized for his research in cardiac pharmacology, adrenergic peripheral mechanisms, theory of drug-receptor mechanisms, and vascular pharmacology and physiology. Much of his research has been carried out on isolated, living preparations of heart and blood vessels.

His development in the 1950's of the helical strip of rabbit thoracic aorta as a model system for studies on drug-receptor mechanisms has been used in laboratories worldwide. He was one of the first investigators to demonstrate the importance of the neuronal uptake mechanism for modulating responses of adrenergic effector organs to norepinephrine and epinephrine.

Before the advent of radioligands for studying receptors, he developed theory and pharmacological procedures for the characterization and differentiation of cell membrane receptors on which drugs, neurotransmitters and hormones act. He was a pioneer in developing the concept and theoretical basis of "receptor reserve."

He made the novel discovery that vascular smooth muscle is photosensitive, undergoing reversible relaxation when exposed to near ultraviolet light.

In 1980, he reported his discovery of the obligatory role of endothelial cells in the relaxation (vasodilation) of arteries by acetylcholine and related muscarinic agonists, and demonstrated that the relaxation resulted from release of a labile factor (later called endothelium-derived relaxing factor or EDRF) from the stimulated endothelial cells. This novel discovery was followed by the discovery in his laboratory and other laboratories that many vasodilators, both endogenous substances and drugs, act by stimulating release of EDRF.

He independently showed that EDRF acts by stimulating the enzyme guanylate cyclase in the vascular smooth muscle cells, leading to an increase in cyclic GMP which mediates relaxation. He also found that photorelaxation of blood vessels is mediated by an increase in cyclic GMP.

In 1986, he presented evidence for his independent proposal that EDRF is nitric oxide, and that the neurotransmitter released by NANC nerves may also be nitric oxide. The discovery of endothelium-dependent vasodilation and EDRF and the identification of EDRF as nitric oxide have opened up a new area of research which is contributing much to our understanding of cardiovascular physiology and pathophysiology.

Dr. Furchgott is a recipient of a number of awards and honors. Among these are the Goodman and Gilman Award for Research on Receptor Pharmacology from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (1984), the CIBA Award from the Hypertension Section of the American Heart Association (1988), The Research Achievement Award of the American Heart Association (1990), the first Annual Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Achievement in Cardiovascular Research (1991); the Gairdner Foundation International Award (1991); Medal of the New York Academy of Medicine (1992).

Dr. Furchgott has also received the Roussel Uclaf Prize for Research in the Field of Cell Communication and Signalling (1994), and the Wellcome Gold Medal of the British Pharmacological Society (1995).

He is the recipient of honorary doctoral degrees (in medicine or science) from the Autonomous University of Madrid, the University of Lund, Sweden, the University of North Carolina, the University of Ghent, Belgium, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He was president of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics from 1971-1972.

In 1990 he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences, and in 1996 he received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, which is often a precursor to the Nobel Prize.

Dr. Furchgott was presented with the Nobel Prize in Medicine in Stockholm, Sweden on December 10, 1998.