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Eva King Killam (1920/21 – July 30, 2006) was a research pharmacologist who studied the activity of drugs on the brain and behavior, developing animal models for epilepsy and opiate dependence.

Killam was the first woman to be awarded the John J. Abel Award in Pharmacology from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) in 1954, and the second woman to be elected as president of ASPET, in 1989. A founding member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) in 1961, she became the first woman President of the ACNP in 1988.

Early life and education

Ellen Eva King was a daughter of Charles Henry King and Louise M. Richter. She had a sister Louise and an older brother, Charles, Jr. who worked for NASA. Eva grew up in Eastchester, New York. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a bachelor's degree in 1942, and from Mount Holyoke College with a master's degree in zoology in 1944.

She spent a year in the Ph.D. program at Yale University, studying zoology, but returned home due to her father's illness. Working as a pharmacologist at the Burroughs-Wellcome Laboratories convinced her to study pharmacology.

She spent three years working as a pharmacologist for the Army Chemical Center with Amedeo S. Marazzi before doing doctoral work in pharmacology at the medical school of the University of Illinois in Chicago, Illinois. There she worked with Klaus Unna [de] and met her future husband, Keith Killam. She received her degree from the University of Illinois in 1953. She was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. from the program.

Career

In 1953, Eva King joined the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) to do postdoctoral work with Horace Winchell Magoun at the UCLA Brain Research Institute. She began studying the effects of chlorpromazine.

In 1955, Eva King and Keith Killam married in Santa Monica, California. Until her retirement in 1991, Eva and her husband were frequent co-investigators.

In 1959, the Killams moved to Stanford University. At Stanford, Keith became an associate professor of pharmacology while Eva worked as a research associate.

In 1968, the Killams joined the University of California at Davis. They moved to the University of California at Davis because they could establish a primate center there. Keith was the founding chair of the Department of Pharmacology, while Eva was first a professor of physiology (1968-1972), and then a professor of pharmacology (1972-).

A founding member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) in 1961, Killam became the first woman President of the ACNP in 1988.

In 1989 Eva King Killam became the second female president of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET), following Marjorie Horning (1984). Killam had previously served as the first female Councillor of the organization (1973-1976).

Killam also served as president of the Western Pharmacology Society which she and her husband had helped to found.

Killam served on the Task Force on Support of Training and Research in Pharmacology, part of the President's Biomedical Research Panel, in 1976. Killam was the first woman editor-in-chief of the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, serving from 1978-1991. She also edited Pharmacological Reviews.

Research

Killam published more than 150 papers in refereed journals, many studying the activity of drugs on neural mechanisms in the areas such as the extrapyramidal motor system, the hippocampus, and the brainstem reticular formation. She made single neuron cell recordings to study the impact of substances on neuronal electrical firing rates. Behaviorally, she studied effects on sleep, wakefulness, and learning. Killam also studied pharmacological control of epilepsy, anticonvulsants and their effects on learning.

The Killams spent a sabbatical in Marseilles, France in 1965 or 1966 with Robert Naquet, and discovered that baboons suffered from a type of epilepsy. After returning to the United States, they set up their own lab, and used their animal model of epilepsy to develop a screening test for anticonvulsants. They were able to examine which drugs worked and where they worked in the brain. They also assessed the behavioral toxicity of potential anti-epileptic drugs and the likelihood that they would affect learning. The baboon research also demonstrated the genetic basis underlying epileptic events, which were inherited in baboons following a strictly Mendelian pattern. Keith credits Eva with doing the majority of the work on baboons and learning.

Later in their careers, they developed an animal model in morphine-dependent Rhesus monkeys with implications for opiate dependence and HIV/AIDS research. They found that a virus similar to the one that causes HIV in humans replicated three times as often in morphine-dependent monkeys as compared to monkeys not exposed to morphine. Mutation rates of the virus were higher and the new mutations were AZT insensitive.

Awards and honors

In 1954, Eva King was the first woman to receive the John J. Abel Award for research in neuropsychopharmacology from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET). The next woman to receive the award was Lee Limbird in 1987, 33 years later. The third was Susan Amara in 1993.

In 2002, Eva King Killam received the Paul Hoch Distinguished Service Award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

The American College of Neuropsychopharmacology has named the Eva King Killam Research Award after her. The award was first given in 2011.

References

1. ^ Spector, Sydney (April 2007). "Eva King Killam, 1920–2006". Neuropsychopharmacology. 32 (4): 974. doi:10.1038/sj.npp.1301298. ISSN 1740-634X. S2CID 36822514.
2. ^ "Memorial Travel Award Fund". American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
3. ^ Cohen, Marlene L.; Brevig, Holly; Carrico, Christine; Wecker, Lynn (2007). "SPECIAL CENTENNIAL ARTICLE Women in ASPET: A Centennial Perspective" (PDF). The Pharmacologist. 49 (4): 124–137. Retrieved 2019-11-24.
4. ^ "PREVIOUS WINNERS OF SOCIETY AWARDS". American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. 2009. Retrieved 12 April 2022.
5. ^ King, Ellen Eva; Marrazzi, Amedeo S. (30 November 1952). "Limiting Effect of Adrenaline on Output of Adrenal Medulla". American Journal of Physiology. Legacy Content. 171 (3): 612–623. doi:10.1152/ajplegacy.1952.171.3.612. ISSN 0002-9513. PMID 13016810. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
6. "Charles H. King Jr. Obituary". The Washington Post. October 15, 2010. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
7. "Charles Henry King Junior | National Air and Space Museum". Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
8. ^ UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS TRANSACTIONS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES July 1, 1952, to June 30, 1954. UIHistories Project Repository: University of Illinois. 1953. p. 723. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
9. ^ Ban, Thomas A.; Fink, Max, eds. (2011). An oral history of neuropsychopharmacology : the first fifty years : peer interviews (PDF). Brentwood, Tennessee: ACNP. ISBN 9781461161455. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
10. King, Ellen Eva (1 January 1953). THE LINGUOMANDIBULAR REFLEX, A NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL AND NEUROPHARMACOLOGICAL STUDY. University of Illinois at Chicago (Thesis). Retrieved 13 April 2022.
11. Henderson, Metta Lou; Worthen, Dennis B. (8 March 2002). American Women Pharmacists: Contributions to the Profession. CRC Press. p. 166. ISBN 978-0-7890-1092-6. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
12. "Ellen E. King Is Bride Of Dr. K. F. Killam". Bronxville Review Press and Reporter. 19 May 1955. Retrieved 13 April 2022. Miss Ellen Eva King, daughter of Mrs. Charles H. King of 42 Parkway Road, Bronxville, became the bride of Dr. Keith F. Killam Jr, son of Mr. and Mrs. Killam of Newton, Mass., at a ceremony performed May 12 in Santa Monica, Calif. Both the bride and her husband are on the faculty of the Medical School, University of California. They will live in Santa Monica. Mrs. Killam, daughter of the late Charles H. King, was graduated from the Bronxviile School and Sarah Lawrence College, and received her Master's degree from Mount Holyoke College and her Ph.D. degree in pharmacology at the Graduate Professional College of the University of Illinois, where her husband, a graduate of Tufts College, also received his Master's and Ph. D. degrees.
13. "Celebrating our founding women in medicine: Under the Plane tree" (PDF). UC Davis School of Medicine. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
14. Report of the President's Biomedical Research Panel: submitted to he President and the Congress of the United States. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service. 1976. p. 268. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
15. "Medical research helps the cause of peace" (PDF). Congressional Record - House. September 11, 1967. p. 24970. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
16. Naquet, R. (February 1972). "Photosensitive epilepsy of the baboon Papio papio". Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. 65 (2): 180. doi:10.1177/003591577206500237. ISSN 0035-9157. PMC 1644133. PMID 5085037.
17. Killam, K. F; Killam, E. K; Naquet, R (1 June 1967). "An animal model of light sensitive epilepsy". Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology. 22 (6): 497–513. doi:10.1016/0013-4694(67)90058-2. ISSN 0013-4694. PMID 4164964. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
18. Burch, N. (6 December 2012). Behavior and Brain Electrical Activity. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-1-4613-4434-6. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
19. "2017 ACNP Paul Hoch Distinguished Service Award" (PDF). American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
20. "Paul Hoch Previous Award Winners". American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
21. "Eva King Killam Previous Award Winners". ACNP. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
22. "Pittenger awarded 2015 ACNP Eva King Killam Research Award". medicine.yale.edu. Retrieved 13 April 2022.

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• Sarah Lawrence College alumni
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• University of Illinois alumni
• Vanderbilt University faculty
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• American pharmacologists
• Women pharmacologists
• American women scientists