Alumnus profile: Doctor Bert O’Malley

Pittsburgh has always been a part of Bert O’Malley’s life. The Steel City native, who… Pittsburgh has always been a part of Bert O’Malley’s life. The Steel City native, who currently serves as the chairman of Baylor College of Medicine’s department of molecular and cellular biology, said his decision to come to Pitt in the 1950s was a fairly simple one.

“I always heard great things about the school,” O’Malley said. “I didn’t have enough money to go anywhere else and I got a scholarship. I never regretted it. I’m a Pitt man all the way.”

As an undergraduate, O’Malley was involved in fraternity life and served as president of the student body. He received his undergraduate degree in 1959 and then went on to study at Pitt’s medical school, which he described as a “put your nose to the grindstone and work” sort of experience.

“Pitt was my real home school,” he said. “I then went on to my career at Duke and the NIH (National Institutes of Health) and Baylor.”

O’Malley’s work was noteworthy from the beginning. Peter Kohler, who worked with O’Malley at NIH, still remembers what distinguished him from his colleagues.

“We always seemed to be surrounded by urine collection bottles,” Kohler wrote in an article published by the Endocrine Society. “Shortly after we arrived in Bethesda [at NIH], O’Malley decided to do a steroid study using monkey urine. Either the preservation was bad or the process flawed, so that the stench of old monkey urine permeated the 12th floor for what seemed like weeks.”

O’Malley was also known for his sense of dedication to the job.

“I always believed Bert deserved every accolade after watching him try to reach recalcitrant chickens hiding in the far corners of a side-entry cage in the wee hours of the morning,” Kohler wrote.

Even after becoming successful in his field, O’Malley has never retired his hard-work mentality. He is currently working on research at Baylor College of Medicine.

“Most of the day is spent in research,” O’Malley said. “My passion is research and all my other daily activities come second to it.”

O’Malley gained fame for his work on the Human Genome Project. He emphasizes, however, that he does not discover genes. Instead, he focuses on their functions.

“I determine how the genome works, how they’re turned on and off by hormones and what makes them go wrong,” O’Malley said.

His research focuses largely on the female hormones estrogen and progesterone; it has helped determine why treatments for female disorders and diseases work the way they do.

“To make progress you can’t work on every single one,” O’Malley said. “My main interest was in the two female hormones. As a consequence, we’ve made resultant applications to understanding how treatments work on breast cancer, endometriosis and uterine cancer.”

To say his research has garnered national attention is an understatement. In addition to being considered one of the founders of the field of molecular endocrinology, he has won over 20 major awards.

Among these are the Ernest Oppenheimer Award, the Gregory Pincus Award and the Feltrinelli International Prize in Biology and the Bicentennial Medallion of Distinction, which was given to him by Pitt. O’Malley also serves as a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.

“They’re all good awards. From a scientist’s point of view, I’d have to say that the most satisfying recognition is my election to the National Academy because it’s peer elected,” O’Malley said.

He attempts to return the favor to the scientific community by traveling nationally.

“You do three things,” O’Malley said. “One: You bring information to other people. Two: You find out new information that you can use in your work. By the time it gets to the journals, it’s a year or two old. Three: Many times you’re contributing to national organizations that are handing out money. It’s your payback to give them your time.”

O’Malley’s commitment to research has permeated every aspect of his life.

“As a scientist, I look at life from a very mechanistic view,” he said. “I want to know how things work in life. That is the excitement.”