NIH Eminent Scientist Profiles

G. Gilbert Ashwell, M.D., was a pioneer in the field of glycobiology and is best known as the oco-discoverer of the asialoglycoprotein receptor in the liver, sometimes referred to as the Ashwell receptor. He began his career at the NIH in 1950 in what was then called the Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1979 and received the prestigious Canada Gairdner Award in 1982. Dr. Ashwell retired from NIH in 1997 but continued to work in his laboratory until shortly before his death.

The Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum has gathered the following resources concerning Dr. Ashwell:

Gil Ashwell's Own Reflections
• Interview with journal Nature, 2008: http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v14/n6/full/nm0608-608.html

NIH Publications
• Brief profile in newsletter NIH Record, 1991: https://nihrecord.nih.gov/PDF_Archive/1991%20PDFs/19910903.pdf 
• Profile after Institute Scholar Appointment in NIH Record, 1984: https://nihrecord.nih.gov/PDF_Archive/1984%20PDFs/19840814.pdf

Journal Publications
• Tribute by John Hanover in Glycobiology, 2015: http://glycob.oxfordjournals.org/content/25/2/135.long 
• Obituary by Toshisuke Kawasaki in Glycoconjugate Journal, 2014: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10719-014-9552-8 
• Tribute by Michael Gottesman et al. in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/46/16232.full.pdf 
• Biographical introduction to Ashwell’s article by Nicole Kresge et al., 2006: http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/ashwell-gilbert.pdf

Non-Journal Publications
• Biographical memoir by John Hanover and William Jakoby for National Academy of Sciences, 2015: http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/ashwell-gilbert.pdf 
• Obituary in Washington Post, 2014: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/gilbert-ashwell-nih-researcher-dies-at-97/2014/07/23/6496be8c-111d-11e4-9285-4243a40ddc97_story.html 
• Obituary in Columbia Medicine magazine, 2014: http://columbiamedicinemagazine.org/sites/default/files/issue_pdfs/Fall14_Winter15_web.pdf

Image courtesy of John Hanover (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda)