Stanford University, Class of 1954

Internist, Omaha

Few medical researchers are fortunate enough to find an important biological process that is linked to a wide range of human diseases. With the discovery of the significance of free-radical damage in biological systems, Denham Harman initiated an avalanche of discoveries about myriad disease processes and therapies to alleviate them.

Early in his career, Harman seemed destined for honors in another scientific field. After earning a BS and Ph.D. from the College of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1943, Harman joined the research arm of Shell Oil in Emeryville, California. Over the next six years working as a research chemist, he was granted 35 patents; the compound of one was used in the "Shell Strip" - a plastic strip to catch flies.

Harman’s work at Shell increased his interest in biology as well as in the cause of aging, and he decided to apply for medical school. University of California administrators, took a dim view of accepting Harman, however, since taxpayers had already helped pay for his chemistry training. Luckily for medical science Stanford took a more enlightened view and admitted him in 1949.

In 1954, between his internship and residency in internal medicine, Harman became a research associate at UC Berkeley’s Donner Laboratory of Medical Physics. There he had to pursue his long-time interest in the cause of aging. "The first four months was a period of progressively increasing frustration, " Harman says. "Then one-morning free radicals crossed my mind, and I knew I had the answer, even if I didn’t know the details yet. "Free radicals are highly reactive chemical subspecies that can tear apart the molecules needed for life’s normal processes, including those of the mitochondria, the cellular power-houses that largely determine an individual’s life span. For 10 years, Harman investigated his idea - "the free-radical theory of aging" - while most scientists ignored the concept or ridiculed it.

By the mid-1960s, however, other scientists were beginning to see the potential of the free radical concept. The next decades of research showed that free-radical concept. The next decades of research showed that free-radical reactions were involved in many diseases, including cancer, atherosclerosis, and Alzheimer’s disease. In recent years, scientists have even come to see the connection between free radicals and the aging process. Harman’s model has led to many studies of the benefits of using antioxidants like vitamins C and E to curb free-radical damage.

Harman became chair of cardiovascular research at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine in 1958. He has continued his efforts to minimize disease processes and to increase the span of healthy, useful life. Currently, he is investigating how free-radical damage might be connected to neuronal degeneration in Alzheimer’s disease.

This reprint published by Stanford University, Office of Medical Development.

www.stanford.edu/center/development