Charles Sawyer, 91; Work Led to Birth Control Pill
Charles H. Sawyer, a professor of neurobiology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine whose research was influential in the development of the birth control pill and the treatment of infertility, has died. He was 91.
Sawyer died June 20 at an assisted living facility in Irvine after the rapid onset of Alzheimer’s disease, said his daughter, Joan Sawyer Steffan.
Sawyer’s research in neuroendocrinology -- the study of how hormones and glands interact with the nervous system -- helped scientists understand how the brain controls the secretion of hormones from the pituitary gland and how that mechanism in turn affects reproductive functions.
Called “Tom” by his friends and known for his raspy voice, Sawyer joined the new UCLA School of Medicine in 1951 and delivered the first lecture to the first anatomy class.
One of five founding members of the UCLA Brain Research Institute and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, he helped train many of the leading scholars in the field of neuroendocrinology.
Roger Guillemin, 1977 Nobel laureate in physiology/medicine, lauded Sawyer for his early research in the then-emerging field of endocrinology.
“Through his fundamental studies of the functions of the ovary and the brain mechanisms that are now known to be their ultimate regulators ... Tom always asked the right question or provided a clue to the right answer,” Guillemin said in a statement.
Born Jan. 24, 1915, in Ludlow, Vt., Sawyer went to Middlebury College. He intended to be a music major, but a biology class changed his mind, his daughter said. He received a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1937, then went to Cambridge University on a fellowship before earning a doctorate in zoology from Yale University in 1941.
In the summer of 1941, he married Ruth Schaeffer, a bacteriologist who had worked at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
Sawyer started his career teaching at Stanford and Duke universities before moving to UCLA. He retired in 1985 but continued to go to his office and work at the anatomy lab until a few years ago.
His daughter studied reproductive endocrinology in graduate school. An assistant professor at UC Irvine’s department of psychiatry and human behavior, she is now researching Huntington’s disease, a neurodegenerative disease related to Alzheimer’s.
In addition to his wife and daughter, Sawyer is survived by two grandsons.
He willed his body to the USC School of Medicine, and the UCLA department of neurobiology plans a memorial service in the fall when classes resume.
In lieu of flowers the family requests donations to the Charles H. Sawyer Fund at the UCLA Department of Neurobiology, Box 951763, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1763.
