FLEUR L. STRAND

STRAND--Fleur L. New York University physiologist Fleur L. Strand, whose research showed the impact of stress-evoked hormones on the peripheral nervous system, died of adenocarcinoma on December 23, 2011 in her home in Snowmass Village, Colorado. She was 83. Strand, who attended NYU as an undergraduate and graduate student, and served on the faculty until her retirement in 1997, was the first to show that stress-evoked hormones, such as adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), could have a direct effect on the peripheral nervous system, independent of the classical role on the adrenal gland. Her novel findings were controversial, and it took a number of years for the scientific community to accept the concept of "neuropeptides"--classical endocrine peptide hormones that also act as important neuromodulators. Strand's seminal paper, "A possible direct action of ACTH on nerve and muscle," was published in the journal Neuroendocrinology in 1974. Additional work from Strand's research in lab rats indicated that offspring of women who smoke or are exposed to high levels of stress during pregnancy could have sexual problems later in life, such as reduced libido. Strand received her academic degrees from NYU, where she obtained a B.A. (1948) and M.S. (1950) in biology, and a Ph.D. in physiology (1952). She also attended the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1944. Strand received a National Institutes of Health fellowship to study at the Physiological Institute of the Free University in Berlin, where she first conducted her ground-breaking work on ACTH. Strand began teaching in NYU's Department of Biology in 1961. In 1980, she became the department's first female chair. She was the Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Biology at NYU from 1991 to 1997, and also a professor of neural science. Strand became a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1976 and was elected Chair of the Board of Governors at the NYAS in 1987. She served as president of the board of trustees of the American Institute of Science and Technology and received numerous honors and awards throughout her career, including the American Medical Writers Award (1984) and Outstanding Woman Scientist of the Year from the New York Chapter of the Association for Women in Science (1987). The Fleur L. Strand Award, given by the American Physiological Society (APS), was established by her former graduate students in 2011 to recognize the achievements of a young physiologist, enabling the recipient to attend APS's annual Experimental Biology conference. Fleur Lillian Emanuel was born on February 24, 1928, in Bloemfontein, South Africa. She married Curt Strand, former chairman and CEO of Hilton International, in 1946. They had one daughter, Karen, who died in 2006. Fleur is survived by her husband Curt, and her brother Frank Emanuel of Cresskill, New Jersey. Donations may be made to the Fleur L. Strand Award of the American Physiological Society; The Fleur L. Strand Award, APS Business Office, 9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20814.