Skip to content
Nobel Jews
Portrait of Robert F. Furchgott
Photo: Jzubrovich at English Wikipedia, Photo by J.A. Zubrovich, SUNY Downstate Medical Center; Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Ephraim33 using CommonsHelper. · CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine · 1998

Robert F. Furchgott

He found that the lining of blood vessels sends a signal, later shown to be nitric oxide gas, that tells arteries to relax.

The Nobel citation: “for their discoveries concerning nitric oxide as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system”
Born
June 4, 1916, Charleston, SC, USA
Died
May 19, 2009, Seattle, WA, USA
Shared with
Louis J. Ignarro, Ferid Murad
Affiliation at the time
SUNY Health Science Center, USA

Medicine prize

1998

Shared with 2 other laureates.

Age that year

82years

Born in 1916.

Headline credited impact

1.2–3million people benefited

Men treated with sildenafil and other PDE5-inhibitor drugs for erectile dysfunction. How it was built

Sources cited

27

Fact-checked September 24, 2026.

  • His Nobel discovery began with a technician's mistake: in May 1978 a drug was tested in the wrong order, and a ring of artery relaxed when it should have tightened.
  • For about 25 years his standard way of cutting artery strips had rubbed off their inner lining without anyone noticing, hiding the very effect that later won him the prize.
  • He found that arteries relax in light after two strips near a window kept tightening and loosening in step on a partly cloudy day.
  • He first wrote down his guess that the mystery factor was nitric oxide during a 1986 airplane flight. The note was later put on display at SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn.
  • He was 82 when a New York Times reporter woke him at 5:30 a.m. to tell him he had won the Nobel Prize.

The breakthrough

The endothelium-derived relaxing factor, identified as nitric oxide (1980-1986)

Arteries are tubes wrapped in muscle. When the muscle tightens, the vessel narrows; when it relaxes, blood flows more easily. A body chemical called acetylcholine was known to widen blood vessels in living animals, yet for about 25 years strips of rabbit artery in Furchgott's lab only tightened when given it. In May 1978 a technician tested a drug in the wrong order, and a ring of artery relaxed instead. Furchgott worked out why. His usual way of cutting strips rubbed away the endothelium, the thin layer of cells lining the inside of the vessel. With that lining intact, acetylcholine relaxed the artery; without it, the relaxation vanished. In 1980, with John Zawadzki, he reported a sandwich test: he pressed a strip with no lining against a strip that still had one, and now the bare strip relaxed too. So the lining must release a messenger that travels to the muscle next to it. The messenger became known as endothelium-derived relaxing factor, or EDRF. In July 1986 he proposed that EDRF was nitric oxide, a simple gas better known as a pollutant, and Louis Ignarro reached the same conclusion independently. Think of the lining as a thermostat that keeps sending short-lived puffs of gas telling the surrounding muscle to ease off. It was the first evidence that the body uses a gas to pass signals from cell to cell.[2],[3],[4],[5],[6]

“I was very lucky to stumble on unexpected results in 1978 that led to the finding of endothelium-dependent relaxation and EDRF, and eventually to NO”
Robert F. Furchgott, From his Nobel autobiography (1998), looking back on the accidental finding that redirected his research.[2]

What it meant for humanity

Furchgott's finding changed how doctors see blood vessels. The inner lining of an artery turned out to be an active tissue that keeps vessels open, and once its signal was identified as nitric oxide, it explained how nitroglycerin, used against chest pain for more than a century, actually works. The Nobel Assembly noted that in atherosclerosis the lining makes less nitric oxide, and that the discovery opened new routes to heart drugs. The best-known result is a class of pills for erectile dysfunction. Sildenafil (Viagra), approved in March 1998, does not cause an erection by itself. It blocks an enzyme that breaks down cGMP, the messenger that nitric oxide switches on, so the body's own signal lasts longer. Within seven years doctors had prescribed it to more than 23 million men, and by 2007 more than 40 million men had been treated with drugs of this type. In 2005 sildenafil was also approved for pulmonary hypertension, a dangerous rise in blood pressure inside the lungs. Nitric oxide gas became a treatment too. Breathed in by newborns in respiratory failure, it improves oxygen levels in about half of them and reduces the need for ECMO, a heart-lung bypass machine, although trials have not shown that it reduces deaths. Doctors also measure nitric oxide in exhaled breath to help diagnose asthma. Behind these uses, nitric oxide research grew into a large field that reaches into the brain, the immune system and the fight against infection.

  • His 1980 Nature paper with John Zawadzki showed that arteries relax to acetylcholine only when their inner lining is present, the finding the Nobel Assembly said opened up the field.[5],[6]
  • Identifying the signal as nitric oxide explained how nitroglycerin, used for more than 100 years against chest pain, works: it releases the same gas.[4],[5]
  • Sildenafil, which boosts the nitric oxide signal, was prescribed to more than 23 million men in its first seven years; by 2007 over 40 million men had been treated with PDE5 inhibitors.[15],[16],[23]
  • A Cochrane review found inhaled nitric oxide improves oxygen levels in about half of hypoxic term and near-term newborns and cuts the need for ECMO, though it does not change mortality.[17]
  • Sildenafil was approved in 2005 to treat pulmonary hypertension, a use that grew out of the same nitric oxide and cGMP pathway.[15]

Impact in numbers

Furchgott's main gift was knowledge: the discovery that the thin lining of blood vessels talks to the muscle around it, and his proposal that the message is nitric oxide. That idea explained an old drug, nitroglycerin, and helped launch a large research field on how a gas acts as a messenger in the heart, brain and immune system. Its most visible medical descendants are PDE5-inhibitor pills such as sildenafil and tadalafil for erectile dysfunction, sildenafil for pulmonary hypertension, and inhaled nitric oxide for newborns in respiratory failure. None of these traces to him alone. We record one modeled claim: a small ripple share (3%) of men treated with PDE5-inhibitor drugs for erectile dysfunction. We make no lives-saved claim, because trials of inhaled nitric oxide in newborns did not show fewer deaths, and the erectile-dysfunction drugs improve quality of life rather than survival.

HealthFundamental science

Each number is the laureate’s credited share of a real-world outcome, cumulative to 2025. The whole outcome, the share of credit, and the reasoning are shown so you can check the arithmetic. Outcomes shared with other laureates are counted once on the impact page.

  • Low confidenceRippleModeledHealth

    Men treated with sildenafil and other PDE5-inhibitor drugs for erectile dysfunction

    1.2–3

    million people benefited, credited share

    That is 3% of 40–100 million people benefited since 1998.

    How this number was built

    Low: Sandner et al. (2007) report more than 40 million men worldwide treated with PDE5 inhibitors since 1998; a cumulative count cannot fall, so 40 million is a floor for 2025. High: sildenafil alone reached more than 23 million men in its first 7 years, about 3.3 million new men a year. If new users of all PDE5 inhibitors kept arriving at about that rate from 2008 to 2025 (18 x 3.3 million = about 59 million), the total is about 100 million. Illicit users are not counted. Share 0.03: the drugs work by prolonging the nitric oxide-cGMP signal. Furchgott's EDRF discovery is one root of that knowledge, alongside Murad's nitric oxide-cGMP work, Ignarro's identification work and Pfizer's chemists and clinicians, who made sildenafil in 1989 and found its effect on erections while testing it for angina.[4],[15],[16],[18],[26]

    Sources: International Journal of Impotence Research (via PubMed); Journal of Sexual Medicine (via PubMed); Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet (NobelPrize.org); Clinical Therapeutics (via PubMed); Wikipedia

The double edge

The discovery itself caused no documented harm, but some of the medicines and experiments built on it did. Sildenafil must never be combined with nitrate heart drugs, because together they can crash blood pressure, and within months of its launch at least 39 deaths among users had been reported, mostly in men with heart disease or on nitrates. A large counterfeit market grew around these pills. Blocking nitric oxide also proved risky: a drug meant to reverse the blood-pressure collapse of septic shock raised deaths in a major trial. There is also a dispute over credit. Many scientists argued that Salvador Moncada, whose group helped show that the lining releases nitric oxide, should have shared the prize, and Furchgott himself said the committee could have chosen a fourth laureate.

  • Moderate

    Safety problems after sildenafil's launch

    Taking sildenafil with nitrate heart drugs can cause a dangerous fall in blood pressure, so the combination is contraindicated. By late 1998 postmarketing reports listed at least 39 deaths among users, mostly men with heart disease, men on nitrates or men in poor health; many had several illnesses, so the drug's role was often unclear. Rare reports of optic-nerve damage (NAION) followed, though a causal link has been hard to establish.[18],[20]

  • Moderate

    A counterfeit pill market

    Fake PDE5 inhibitors make up the bulk of counterfeit drug seizures. Tested fakes contained anywhere from 0% to over 200% of the labelled dose, and some contained talc, paint or printer ink. Up to 2.5 million men in Europe may be exposed to illicit sildenafil, often bought online without seeing a doctor.[19]

  • Moderate

    Blocking nitric oxide in septic shock backfired

    Because a flood of nitric oxide helps cause the blood-pressure collapse of septic shock, researchers tested a drug that blocks its production. In a trial of 797 patients, stopped early, 28-day mortality was 59% on the drug versus 49% on placebo.[4],[21]

  • Minor

    Salvador Moncada left out of the prize

    The 1998 prize excluded Salvador Moncada, whose group helped show that endothelial cells release nitric oxide. More than 90 institutions had honored his contribution, protests followed, and Furchgott said the committee could have made an exception and chosen a fourth laureate.[22]

Against the odds

Furchgott did not face the violent persecution that shaped many laureates' lives, and he said so himself. He grew up in a Reform Jewish family in Charleston, where he agreed that Christians and Jews got along well, though scout troops there seemed to be organized through churches and he joined Troop 21, the Jewish troop. In Orangeburg, home to only five or six Jewish families, he remembered no discrimination against Jews, while noting the terrible discrimination against Black residents. His hardships were economic. The Charleston department store his immigrant grandfather had started was failing and closed in 1933 during the Great Depression, and the family moved three times in search of a living. He began college in South Carolina because his father could not afford out-of-state tuition at Chapel Hill. In 1937, although he recalled being the top student in his class, he applied to dozens of chemistry departments and had no offer until a single teaching assistantship arrived in mid-June, paying $50 a month. He never blamed prejudice for this, and we found no evidence that it played a role. The wider climate was less friendly: elite universities had restricted Jewish admissions since the 1920s, and in the 1930s the radio priest Charles Coughlin, whose broadcasts reached tens of millions of listeners, spread antisemitic lies.

  • 1929

    Poverty

    The family's Charleston department store, founded by his grandfather, was struggling; it closed in 1933 during the Depression. His father moved the family to Orangeburg in 1929, then to Goldsboro, North Carolina, then to Florence, South Carolina, and he started college in his home state because out-of-state tuition was more than his father could afford.[2],[8],[9],[25]

  • 1937

    Other

    Although he recalled being the top student in his class at Chapel Hill, dozens of applications brought no graduate offer until a teaching assistantship at Northwestern, paying $50 a month, arrived in mid-June. He did not attribute this to antisemitism, and we found no evidence either way.[2],[8]

  • —

    Discrimination

    He reported no personal discrimination, but he came of age when elite universities capped Jewish admissions and the radio priest Charles Coughlin, whose broadcasts regularly drew about 30 million listeners in the early 1930s, spread antisemitic ideas.[8],[24],[27]

Jewish background

Both parents JewishCulturally Jewish

Furchgott was born into a Jewish family in Charleston. His paternal grandfather, Max Furchgott, was a Jewish immigrant from Nitra (now in Slovakia) who helped found the family's dry-goods business. His mother, Pena Sorentrue, came from Orangeburg, and her grandfather Simon Brown was a Jewish immigrant who arrived around 1849 and settled in Blackville, South Carolina. The family belonged to Charleston's Reform congregation, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, where as a boy he helped hold the Torah. He was confirmed in Orangeburg's tiny Reform congregation. In a 2001 oral history he said he had never been ardent in his religion and still was not, and called temple life mostly social.[7],[8],[9],[10],[11],[12]

Key dates

  1. June 4, 1916

    Born in Charleston, South Carolina, to Arthur Furchgott, a department-store merchant, and Pena Sorentrue Furchgott.[1],[2],[9]

  2. 1929

    With the family's Charleston store struggling, the family moves to Orangeburg, his mother's hometown, where his father opens a clothing store.[2],[9],[25]

  3. 1937

    Graduates in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[2],[12]

  4. 1940

    Earns a PhD at Northwestern University for work on red blood cell membranes, then joins Cornell University Medical College in New York.[2]

  5. 1949

    Moves to the Department of Pharmacology at Washington University in St. Louis.[2]

  6. 1953

    Publishes his rabbit aortic strip method; acetylcholine, oddly, only makes the strips contract.[2],[3]

  7. 1956

    Becomes founding chairman of pharmacology at the SUNY medical school in Brooklyn (later SUNY Downstate).[2]

  8. May 1978

    A technician's error reveals that artery rings relax to acetylcholine, starting the hunt for the reason.[2],[3]

  9. November 27, 1980

    Publishes with John Zawadzki in Nature that relaxation requires the endothelium, which releases a relaxing substance.[5],[6]

  10. July 1986

    At a symposium in Rochester, Minnesota, proposes that the relaxing factor is nitric oxide; Louis Ignarro reaches the same conclusion.[3],[4],[5]

  11. 1989

    Retires as professor emeritus but keeps doing research in Brooklyn and, in winters, in Miami.[2]

  12. October 12, 1998

    Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Louis Ignarro and Ferid Murad, at age 82.[1],[4],[12]

  13. May 19, 2009

    Dies in Seattle, Washington, aged 92.[13],[14]

Sources

  1. 1.Robert F. Furchgott - Facts · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
  2. 2.Robert F. Furchgott - Biographical · NobelPrize.org (from Les Prix Nobel, The Nobel Prizes 1998, Nobel Foundation, 1999), 1999
  3. 3.Endothelium-Derived Relaxing Factor: Discovery, Early Studies, and Identification as Nitric Oxide (Nobel Lecture, 8 December 1998) · NobelPrize.org, 1998
  4. 4.The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1998 - Press release · Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet (NobelPrize.org), 1998
  5. 5.The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1998 - Award ceremony speech · NobelPrize.org, 1998
  6. 6.The obligatory role of endothelial cells in the relaxation of arterial smooth muscle by acetylcholine (Furchgott RF, Zawadzki JV), Nature 288:373-376 · Nature (via PubMed), 1980
  7. 7.Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Robert Furchgott (catalog record and summary) · Lowcountry Digital Library, College of Charleston Libraries, 2001
  8. 8.Oral history interview with Dr. Robert Francis Furchgott, 28 February 2001 (transcript, Mss. 1035-252) · Jewish Heritage Collection, Special Collections, College of Charleston, 2001
  9. 9.Arthur Furchgott Family (Mapping Jewish Charleston, 1910) · Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture, College of Charleston
  10. 10.The Furchgott Stores, since 1866 (by David Furchgott) · Jewish Merchant Project, Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina
  11. 11.Encyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities: Orangeburg, South Carolina · Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life (ISJL)
  12. 12.From Orangeburg HS championship to Nobel Prize, Furchgott found success · The Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, SC), 2015
  13. 13.Nobel laureate Robert Furchgott dies in Seattle · The Seattle Times, 2009
  14. 14.Nobel scientist Robert Furchgott, 92, dies · The Herald (Everett, WA), HeraldNet, 2009
  15. 15.PDE5 inhibitors beyond erectile dysfunction (Sandner P et al.), Int J Impot Res 19(6):533-543 · International Journal of Impotence Research (via PubMed), 2007
  16. 16.A systematic review assessing the economic impact of sildenafil citrate (Viagra) in the treatment of erectile dysfunction (Martin AL et al.), J Sex Med 10(5):1389-1400 · Journal of Sexual Medicine (via PubMed), 2013
  17. 17.Nitric oxide for respiratory failure in infants born at or near term (Barrington KJ et al.), Cochrane Database Syst Rev CD000399 · Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (via PubMed), 2017
  18. 18.Safety and efficacy of sildenafil citrate in the treatment of male erectile dysfunction (Goldenberg MM), Clin Ther 20(6):1033-1048 · Clinical Therapeutics (via PubMed), 1998
  19. 19.Counterfeit phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors pose significant safety risks (Jackson G et al.), Int J Clin Pract 64(4):497-504 · International Journal of Clinical Practice (via PubMed), 2010
  20. 20.Ocular safety in patients using sildenafil citrate therapy for erectile dysfunction (Laties A, Sharlip I), J Sex Med 3(1):12-27 · Journal of Sexual Medicine (via PubMed), 2006
  21. 21.Multiple-center, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study of the nitric oxide synthase inhibitor 546C88: effect on survival in patients with septic shock (Lopez A et al.), Crit Care Med 32(1):21-30 · Critical Care Medicine (via PubMed), 2004
  22. 22.The Nobel Prize for nitric oxide. The unjust exclusion of Dr. Salvador Moncada (de Berrazueta JR), Rev Esp Cardiol 52(4):221-226 · Revista Espanola de Cardiologia (via PubMed), 1999
  23. 23.Sildenafil citrate: current clinical experience (Eid JF), Int J Impot Res 12 Suppl 4:S62-S66 · International Journal of Impotence Research (via PubMed), 2000
  24. 24.The Radio Priest: Charles E. Coughlin and American Antisemitism · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  25. 25.M. Furchgott & Sons (Mapping Jewish Charleston, 1910) · Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture, College of Charleston
  26. 26.Sildenafil · Wikipedia
  27. 27.How the Ivy League's Jewish quotas shaped higher education (interview with Mark Oppenheimer) · Inside Higher Ed, 2022

Fact-checked on September 24, 2026 by a separate AI fact-checking pass that re-opened the sources, with 8 corrections made. How we check

Suggest a correction