The prominent Albanian-American Nobel laureate, dr. Ferid Murad passed away at the age of 87.

Scientist Ferid Muradi was born on September 14, 1936 in Whiting, Indiana, United States of America. Dr. Murati was an Albanian-American physician-pharmacologist and medical researcher and winner of the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1998, for discovering how nitric oxide (NO) acts as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system, revealing a completely new mechanism by which the blood vessels relax and dilate.

The missing steps in the signaling process were filled in by Robert F. Furchgott and Louis J. Ignarro of UCLA, for which the three shared the 1998 Nobel Prize (and for which Murad and Furchgott received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1996). In 1999, Murad and Furchgott received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. He was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences among other notable societies.

In 2015, Murad signed the Mainau Declaration 2015 on Climate Change on the final day of the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. The declaration was signed by a total of 76 Nobel Laureates and handed to then-President of the French Republic, François Hollande, as part of the successful COP21 climate summit in Paris.

Prof. Murad was editing a book series published by Bentham Science Publishers titled Herbal medicine: Back to the Future; two volumes of which have already been published and a third volume was in preparation

“He was one of the most prominent names of our nation with whom we all felt proud”, writes the condolences message that the Faculty of Medicine expressed online, for the family, colleagues of the medical community and all Albanians everywhere.

/k.s/