Louis Ignarro

Professor Louis J. Ignarro has devoted his life’s work to advancing heart health. He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he has excelled as both a research scientist and a professor since 1985, winning many Golden Apple teaching awards from his medical students. He began his basic research into nitric oxide and its relationship with the cyclic nucleotide cGMP during his tenure at the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana.

In 1998, Prof Ignarro was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Robert F. Furchgott and Ferid Murad, “for their discovery that nitric oxide acts as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system”. His numerous discoveries on the role of nitric oxide have led to significant advancements in cardiovascular science and the understanding of heart disease. He is the founder of the Nitric Oxide Society and is a member of the US National Academies of Sciences and of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.