October 14, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — "Camelia-Lucia Cimpianu, an early-career scientist who attended the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting this summer in Germany, is trying to decide between a career as a researcher or a practising doctor," notes Scientific American. The magazine's website links to a video in which Cimpianu "seeks advice from Nobel Laureate Ferid Murad who faced the same dilemma as a medical student in the 1960s. Murad chose the bench, and he subsequently discovered that nitric oxide acts as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system. It turns out that nitric oxide plays a role in many diseases -- and possibly in the head trauma cases that Camelia studies."
Access the piece via the magazine's website.
A 1958 graduate of DePauw University, Dr. Murad shared a Nobel Prize in 1998
for his research on nitric oxide, including identifying its role in
nitroglycerin.
He delivered the golden anniversary address to his Class of 1958 at DePauw's Alumni Celebration on June 14, 2008, in which he expressed his concern that the United States "may be starting to lose the race" in science and technology. A brief summary of his remarks and a link to an MP3 file of the complete speech can be found in this story.
On April 23, 1999, Murad delivered an Ubben Lecture at his alma mater. A summary and video clip are available here.