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A Footnote to Pituitary Transplantation Research

It was by good fortune that Jack DeGroot visited my laboratory one Saturday morning during the mid-1950s. The visit could not have come at a more appropriate time, for he was skilled in the transtemporal surgical approach to the basal hypothalamus of the rat brain. Jack had formerly trained with Geoffrey Harris in the Department of Physiology, University of Cambridge, during the period when Harris perfected transtemporal surgery for his famous work on the pituitary stalk and the pituitary portal vessels.

In 1954 and 1956 I demonstrated that transplantation of the anterior pituitary gland away from its connection to the brain to a site in the renal capsule favored chronic secretion of PRL ("luteotrophin") whereas other trophic secretions were essentially lost. It was already known through the study by Harris and Jacobsohn that if anterior pituitaries were grafted near the pituitary stalk soon after hypophysectomy, normal ovarian functions resumed because of prompt regeneration of the portal vessels.

Footnotes

"Remembrance" articles discuss people and events as remembered by the author. The opinion(s) expressed are solely those of the writer and do not reflect the view of the Journal or The Endocrine Society.

Received June 20, 1991.