Dr. Nabil Seidah

Dr. Nabil Seidah was trained at Georgetown University in physical chemistry before joining the Institute first as as post-doctoral fellow and then as director of the laboratory on biochemical neuroendocrinology. Dr. Seidah is the co-discoverer of human beta-endorphin and has worked on its biosynthesis for four to five years demonstrating in particular the exact sites of cleavage during pulse-chase experiments. For this work, he received the Clarke Institute Award in 1978 (Toronto). He was the first to develop, in collaboration with the late Margaret Dayhoff, (in the mid 1970's) computer programs to identify protein fragments from data of partial sequence at 10-15 M range. Since 1979, he has tackled one of the most crucial and central aspects of brain chemistry which is the characterization of the enzymatic systems for the cleavage of precursors at pairs of basic amino acid residues. Only a few scientists have had the courage and the determination to tackle this complicated problem. He, Donald Steiner, Peng Loh and J. Thorner are the main leaders in the field. Even though the international competition was very high, Dr. Seidah is the first to have identified a new family of enzymes by reverse genetics which has all the properties of the cleavage enzyme.
Dr. Seidah is a superb protein biochemist and he has added molecular biology to his wide expertise by spending one year sabbatical at the Pasteur Institute in Paris in 1987. He is now working on the protein aspect of his discovery and he is superbly prepared to bring it to fruition. Dr. Seidah is a chemist who has become an excellent biochemist and a world leader in his field. The new enzymes he discovered, called convertases, are at the crossroads of the new chemistry of the brain i.e. the neuropeptides. The cleavage of their precursors is a universal phenomenon which helps the brain to produce the tens of thousands of molecules it needs to insure his numerous and varied functions.