Pregnenolone Update
with Eugene Roberts Ph.D.
Eugene Roberts, Ph.D., has been a leading figure in neurochemistry for more than half a century. Currently a Distinguished Scientist at the City of Hope, in California, he received his doctorate in biochemistry in 1943. In the intervening years, he worked on the Manhattan Project, determining the safe levels of exposure to uranium dust, performed cancer research a Washington University in St. Louis, where he discovered the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), and in 1954, he founded the Department of Biochemistry and the division of Neurosciences at the City of Hope.
For much of the last decade, he has been studying steroid metabolism and has been instrumental in reviving interest in pregnenolone and DHEA as potential therapeutic agents. At age 78, he remains an active researcher, theoretician, and member of the National Academy of Sciences, still trying to climb such "Mount Everests of science" as cancer and schizophrenia.
I spoke with Dr. Roberts about his latest research in the biochemistry of pregnenolone and its therapeutic effects. I was impressed by his very lively mind, which easily leaps from one idea to the next, and the vast range of his knowledge. He's also a warm and perceptive person, with a highly creative perspective, who seems to really be having fun in life.