Andrew Holmes – Dennis Murphy – Klaus-Peter Lesch: Hiking the Doe Mountain Trail, Sedona, Arizona, Spring 2005
Dennis L. Murphy, MD, known to all as Dennis, passed away on September 23 2017. His death was unexpected; he died of respiratory failure after brief hospitalization. Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with his wife, Nancy; daughter, Julia; two sons, David and Steve; and the extended family.
Dennis received his undergraduate degree from Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and his Medical and Master of Science degrees from the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dennis began his research career while completing a residency in psychiatry at The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. Dennis had a long and distinguished career in the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Intramural Research Program (IRP). He joined NIMH as a clinical fellow in 1966 and became Chief of the Clinical Neuropharmacology Branch in 1977, which was incorporated within the Laboratory of Clinical Science in 1983. He became a Fellow of the Collegium Internationale Neuro-Psychopharmacologicum in 1974.
Dennis received numerous awards and distinctions, including two Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Awards; the U.S. Public Health Service’s Superior Service Award; the Department of Health and Human Services’ Distinguished Service Award; the Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s Meritorious Service Award; the American Psychiatric Association’s Hofheimer Prize for Research; and, the Society for Biological Psychiatry’s A.E. Bennett Award for Clinical Research.
When Dennis retired in his late seventies at the end of 2014, he was able to look back on many decades of research in neuropsychopharmacology and biological psychiatry. His contributions to science are more than remarkable. The impact of his discoveries on our current understanding of pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric disorders and their successful treatment is particularly outstanding. Dennis inspired others by example. He was unconditionally passionate about science, a rigorous and persistent researcher and a distinguished leader in his field, a gifted teacher and influential scientific mentor, all across more than four decades. While at NIMH, Dennis explored the neurobiology of neuropsychiatric disorders with a strong focus on mood and anxiety disorders using neurochemical, molecular, genetic and cellular techniques in animal models and humans. In addition to authoring over 900 scientific publications and 4 books, Dennis’ legacy includes over 100 students and fellows, of whom more than 30 went on to serve as chairs of psychiatry and basic science departments in academia and industry around the world.
I first encountered Dennis after his presentation on “Hormonal responses to serotonergic drugs as a means to evaluate brain serotonergic function in humans” at the International Symposium on Serotonin (so-called Serotonin Club) in Florence in 1989. We discussed my work with the serotonin receptor-1A partial agonist ipsapirone and a few months later he had arranged for me to join his laboratory as a Fogarthy Research Fellow. When I arrived in Bethesda on a wintry and snow-white day in late April 1990, Dennis and Nancy put me up in their home in Potomac for the first week with supreme hospitality. Already on the next day after my arrival he took me on a hike on the Billy Goat Trail, an amazing wilderness area along the Potomac River close to his home. During this exhausting exercise, I got to know Dennis not only as a passionate researcher and magnificent teacher but also as an avid hiker. Over the next years, we continued hiking in many places, including the mountains of Santa Fe, New Mexico, the deserts around Tucson, Arizona, and the island of Rhodes, Greece. Numerous also were our tennis matches, either locally in the neighborhood or on the NIH campus or whenever we met in remote places of the world. The tennis racket was always our travel companion – and traveling around the globe was our favorite pastime, if not together, then at least sharing our best photographs.
Throughout his scientific life, Dennis put most of his efforts on a better understanding of obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety disorders with a strong emphasis on the role of the brain serotonin system in their pathophysiology and therapeutic response. This brought his attention to the enzyme monoamine oxidase A, and later, the serotonin transporter. He was one of the first to propagate serotonin reuptake inhibitors as a treatment of choice in obsessive-compulsive disorder. His mentoring abilities gave critical impulses to the achievements of numerous coworkers and collaborators, including Josi Zohar, Tom Insel, Chawki Benkelfat, György Bagdi, Ben Greenberg, Benedetto Vitiello and Andrew Holmes, to mention only my contemporaries.
In the words of these colleagues: “Dennis was an eminent trail blazer of biological psychiatry,” “Dennis was one of the greats of a greatest generation of biological psychiatrists,” “Dennis was a giant in our field and a wonderful human being,” “He was a most creative and successful scientist for many decades. He was very kind and considerate, always, a gentleman and a scholar,” “Dennis was devoted to excellence, but never at the expense of decency,” and about his “nurturing of scores of trainees with the same style: careful but incorporating new tools, soft-spoken but strong willed, non-directive but supportive, collaborative but also protective.” From this unique way particularly the Würzburg connection comprising Dietmar Bengel, Armin Heils, Jens Wendland and myself benefited greatly, thus maintaining a remarkably productive collaboration during more than two decades.
Although Dennis was a biological psychiatrist and neuropsychopharmacologist, our extensive discussions lead to the conclusion that investigation of the neurobiologic foundation of psychiatric disease would require molecular biologic and genetic approaches. Owing to his broad-mindedness, he without hesitation supported my training in molecular biologic techniques, so-called Track Courses taking place in the “Cloisters” on NIH research campus during my first year. Although I had merely clinical education as a psychiatrist, he encouraged my curiosity and it was one of the most rewarding experiences in my scientific life starting to run PCRs and clone stretches of DNA together with Ben Wolozin in his lab. This work eventually led to my discovery of the polymorphism in the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) gene, widely known as 5-HTTLPR and the generation of the 5-HTT knockout mouse. Dennis’ networking abilities allowed both of us to investigate this mouse model at all levels of complexity, resulting in numerous unexpected findings that further stimulated scientific scrutiny also in other medical fields. This process of discovery at the core of his legacy is still ongoing in several laboratories around the globe. Despite considerable attention from the science community, Dennis was never seeking public attention or prominence. His modesty and humbleness were my guideline throughout my own career.
Dennis exemplified a researcher’s life well lived, and, while he will be truly missed, he leaves behind a legacy for us all who were deeply influenced by him. Thank you, Dennis, for being our hero in science and in life.