NIH Eminent Scientist Profiles

John Daly, Ph.D., was a world-renowned leader in natural products, chemical ecology, biological chemistry, and pharmacology. Many of his discoveries came from his own adventures in the rainforests of Central and South America, Australia and Madagascar, isolating, for example, the biologically active compounds from the skin of poisonous tree frogs. He 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. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1997.

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

NIH Publications:
• Memorial service announcement in NIH Record, 2008: https://nihrecord.nih.gov/newsletters/2008/05_30_2008/story5.htm
• Description of frog studies in NIH Record, 2002: https://nihrecord.nih.gov/newsletters/09_03_2002/story01.htm
• Celebration of career in NIH Record, 1998: https://nihrecord.nih.gov/newsletters/08_25_98/story05.htm
• Announcement of appointment to Section on Pharmacodynamics in NIH Record, 1969: https://nihrecord.nih.gov/PDF_Archive/1969%20PDFs/19690401.pdf

Journal Publications:
• Tribute by Richard W. Fitch and Carole A. Bewley in Journal of Natural Products, 2010: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/np1000494
• Tribute by H. Martin Garraffo in Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology, 2009: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10571-008-9280-3
• Tribute by Juan M. Saavedra in Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology, 2009: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10571-008-9334-6
• Tribute by Kenneth A. Jacobson and Kenneth L. Kirk in Heterocycles, 2009: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4493916/
• Technical explanation of work by Bertil B. Fredholm and Kenneth A. Jacobson, 2009: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4477965/
• Biography by Kenneth L. Kirk and Fabian Gusovsky in Heterocycles, 2008: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/244781025_John_W_Daly_The_early_years_The_NIH_shift_and_cyclic-AMP_assays_Early_pharmacological_breakthroughs

Non-journal Publications:
• Obituary by American Chemical Society, 2008: https://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/86/i10/8610notw11.html
• Mentioned in article on rain forest harvesting in New York Times, 1999: https://www.nytimes.com/learning/students/pop/articles/112699sci-research.html