Paul Greengard, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2000

Obituary - Kansas City Star, April 21, 2019, pg. 23A

Paul Greengard, an American neuroscientist whose 15-year quest to understand how brain cells communicate provided new insights into psychological diseases and earned him a Nobel Prize, and who used his entire $400,000 award to create an academic prize in memory of the mother he never knew, died April 13 in Manhattan. He was 93.

His death was confirmed by Rockefeller University, where he had worked since 1983.

Greengard received the 2000 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with Dr. Arvid Carlsson of Sweden and Dr. Eric Kandel of the United States for independent discoveries related to the ways brain cells relay messages about movement, memory and mental states. Their discoveries offered new insights into disorders linked to errors in cell communication, such as Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and drug addiction.

Greengard was born Dec. 11, 1925 in Brooklyn, New York. His father was a vaudeville performer who became a perfume salesman; his mother a homemaker, died giving birth to him, although Greengard did not know about his mother until he was in college.

After he received his Nobel Prize, he used his $400,000 award to establish the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize for women in biomedical research, in honor of his mother.

He was married to artist Ursula von Rydingsvard at the time of his death.