Toshio Narahashi, DVM, PhD was the John Evans Professor of Pharmacology, Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Biological Chemistry, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Narahashi, widely considered one of the founding fathers of neurotoxicology, passed away at his Chicago home on April 21, 2013, of complications associated with colon cancer. He was 86.
Over a career spanning more than 50 years, Dr. Narahashi was one of the most highly decorated members of the SOT. He was the first to be awarded the Distinguished Investigator Lifetime Achievement Award in Neurotoxicology in 2001 from the Neurotoxicology Specialty Section; he received the Distinguished Toxicology Scholar Award from the SOT in 2008, and the prestigious Merit Award in 1991. Dr. Narahashi’s scientific influence was felt far beyond the SOT, as he received the Otto Krayer Award from the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and the K.C. Cole Award from the Biophysical Society. He received a Jacob Javitts Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), among others.
Dr. Narahashi graduated from the University of Tokyo Faculty of Agriculture with the DVM equivalent in 1948. His scientific career began with studies on the mechanisms of action of insecticides in the Laboratory of Applied Entomology. Already well ahead of his times, Dr. Narahashi used electrical recordings of neuronal and muscle activity to delineate the mechanisms by which chemicals produced their insecticidal action. His findings led to such pivotal observations as the negative temperature-dependence of DDT for its insecticidal action, and the development of knockdown resistance to insecticides (“KDR”). He attained international prominence in 1964 when as a visiting researcher at Duke, he made the pivotal discovery that tetrodotoxin, the pufferfish toxin, acted specifically on voltage-gated sodium channels to block nerve conduction. Always maintaining a great sense of humor and perspective, he introduced into his description of the mechanism of action of TTX the famous fight between Agent 007—James Bond and a Russian agent who poisoned him with TTX from a knife blade in her boot (Ian Fleming, From Russia with Love). He also described in detail ion channel modulation by other toxins including batrachatoxin, grayanotoxin, and sea anemone toxins, popularizing their use as high specific chemical tools to study ion channel function. In defining the highly selective mechanism of action of TTX, he elevated the study of toxins and the associated science of toxinology from one of mere biological curiosity to one of such prominence, that biological toxins are now mainstays of experimental studies of excitable cells and signaling process, and have even become accepted therapeutic agents for treatment of intractable neuropathic pain (omega conotoxin GVIA- Ziconide®) or muscle spasticity (Botulinum toxin A,).
Dr. Narahashi was awarded a PhD in Neurotoxicology in 1960 from the University of Tokyo in the old European model of degree conferral based on his 26 full-length publications.
After coming to the US, Dr. Narahashi held faculty positions at Duke, rising to Vice Chairman of the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology before moving to Northwestern University Medical School as Chair of Pharmacology in 1977. Desiccated, preserved puffer fish decorated his office at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. He remained at Northwestern until his death and held the John Evans Professorship in Pharmacology, the highest award at the institution. Not content to rest on his many scientific laurels, Dr. Narahashi forged a juggernaut of a department of Pharmacology at Northwestern, attracting the best, and brightest from around the world. In his last four years as Chair, Northwestern University Pharmacology Department was ranked #1 in the US out of 100 federally-funded departments for citations/publication, a true statement of his impact as an administrator.
While his work with biological toxins earned him world renown, his research with insecticide neurotoxicity has had an equal or greater societal impact. Dr. Narahashi’s work with insecticides was pivotal to identifying the ion channel basis of insecticidal action of DDT, pyrethroids, dieldren, and others making him a world leader of insecticide toxicology.
During his scientific career, Dr. Narahashi trained an estimated 140 graduate students and other professionals.These individuals went on to prestigious jobs in academia as well as in the chemical industry at DuPont and BASF. He published 324 papers and 148 chapters and reviews, and edited 11 books. Dr. Narahashi maintained an active teaching profile during his time as department chair, and continued even after the onset of his cancer. In winter 2012 he presented the course Molecular Basis of Drug Action: A Treatise on Excitable Cell Physiology, Biophysics, and Pharmacology.
He is survived by his wife of 58 years Kyoko, a son, Taro; a daughter Keiko; two grandchildren; five brothers and one sister.