2022-Gala Program Online Honoree -4.14.2022

HONOREE
EVA J. NEER ’59 PhD +
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Medicine
Eva J. Neer was a biochemist and heart researcher.
She became a research associate at Harvard
University in 1970, an assistant professor of
biochemistry in 1976, an associate professor in
1979, and professor of medicine and biochemistry
in 1990, becoming the second woman ever to hold
that title at Harvard. From 1982 to 1992, she also worked as a biochemist in
the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
She received her bachelor’s degree from Barnard and earned a Doctor
of Medicine degree from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and
Surgeons.
Dr. Neer’s studies on transmembrane signaling systems and G proteins, an
important class of signaling molecules, revolutionized the fields of signal
transduction and protein function. Her laboratory was the first to describe
the physical properties of adenylyl cyclase enzymes, to develop a chemical
separation of the adenylyl cyclase unit from a G protein, to demonstrate
that the rate-limiting step in the activation of the catalytic unit was equal
to the rate of activation of the G protein, and to show that calmodulin
activated the catalytic unit. She also discovered a G protein subunit, called
Go, that regulated important ion channels and proved to be one of the
most abundant signaling proteins in the human brain. Her most significant
contribution was identifying the coupling of muscarinic receptors on the
heart to the IKACh ion channel.
Dr. Neer was a member of the American Society for Molecular Biology
and Biochemistry, the Endocrine Society, the Society for Neuroscience,
and both the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of
Medicine. She received the Basic Research Prize from the American
Heart Association in 1996 and the Excellence in Science Award from the
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in 1998.
Dr. Neer passed away in 2000.
+ Indicates deceased