Daly, John W. (1933–2008)

Credits: Courtesy of the NIH Record
John Daly, Ph.D., was a world-renowned leader in natural products, chemical ecology, biological chemistry, and pharmacology. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1997.
Many of Daly's discoveries came from his adventures in the rainforests of Central and South America, Australia and Madagascar. For example, he isolated the biologically active compounds from the skin of poisonous tree frogs and found that one of these alkaloids, epibatidine, is 200 times more effective than morphine as a painkiller. During the 1980s, Daly was among the 100 most-cited scientists worldwide.