Salk Institute, UCSD Researchers Named to Prestigious Body : Honors: The three are among the 59 newly elected members of the National Academy of Sciences.

Three San Diego scientists were elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences Tuesday, officials announced.

Two scientists from the Salk Institute and one from UC San Diego were among the 59 new members named to the prestigious national group, which advises the federal government on scientific or technological matters.

Dr. Stephen Heinemann, professor in Salk’s Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory and a UCSD adjunct professor of neurosciences, and Dr. Wylie Vale, professor and head of Salk’s Clayton Foundation Laboratories for Peptide Biology, were named to the academy.

Y. C. Fung, professor emeritus of bioengineering at UCSD, was also named to the private organization of more than 1,500 scientists and engineers.

The election brings to eight the number of Salk Institute scientists in the Academy. At UCSD, this year’s round of appointments increased their number of academy members to 56.

Research institutions tout their number of academy members as though it was the scientific version of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

In fact, both Salk and UCSD claimed Heinemann in their tally of their respective institution’s academy members. At UCSD, 7% of the faculty belong to the academy; Scripps, 3%; and Salk, 17%, said Ken Klivington, a Salk spokesman.

“We are pleased that the National Academy of Sciences has recognized the importance of the exceptional research conducted over many years by Drs. Heinemann and Vale,” said Dr. Renato Dulbecco, Salk president and also a member of the Academy. “With their election, our faculty now has a remarkable 17% membership in the academy.”

The academy, established in 1863, was formed during the Abraham Lincoln Administration. The Washington-based academy draws its members from a variety of scientific fields, including mathematics, astronomy, physics, geology, botany, anthropology, and psychology. Scientists are named to the academy in recognition of their distinguished records in pioneering research.

From San Diego, this year’s electees study a variety of topics, from brain neurotransmitters to the body’s blood circulation to brain hormones that govern stress.

Heinemann’s research at Salk and UCSD has focused on the molecules that enable nerve and muscle cells to receive chemical messages transmitted by nerve cells. Almost 20 years ago, he and his colleagues unlocked the mystery surrounding the paralyzing disease myasthenia gravis when they learned that an error in the immune system caused the destruction of receptors on muscle cells, making them unable to react to commands from nerve cells.

Recently, Heinemann isolated the genes which direct receptors to respond to a substance called glutamate. Glutamate receptors play a crucial part in learning, memory and in the formation of an embryo’s brain. Experts hope the results of this work might one day help in better understanding memory disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Vale, the other Salk scientist to be elected this year, studies brain hormones that are responsible for regulating a number of the body’s functions, including growth, reproduction and the body’s response to stressful situations. In fact, Vale and his co-workers in 1981 discovered the brain hormone--corticotropin--that triggers the body’s reaction to stress.

Today, Vale is searching for a substance to block the release, thwarting the body’s production of the releasing factor. Such a substance could be used to treat afflictions involving excessive production of corticotropin, such as chronic stress, clinical depression and anorexia.

Fung, the third local member to be elected to the academy, is known to some as the “father of biomechanics.” Fung works in rheology, a field examining the science of flow and change in fluids and matter. He has also studied the mechanics of soft tissues in the heart, lung, and blood cells.

Today, Fung has launched a major project--describing the entire system of blood circulation in the heart, including the shape, measurement and mechanical properties of coronary blood vessels. Fung hopes to figure out how changes in the blood pressure might alter, and even destroy, the lining of blood vessels.