Susan Leeman, 95, Dies; Explored How the Brain Influences the Body

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: New York Times

Susan Leeman, 95, Dies; Explored How the Brain Influences the Body

In an era of overt sexism in the sciences, she made two major discoveries, including identifying a chemical signal in the brain linked to chronic pain and migraines.


Susan Leeman with her son, Raphael, in 1982. She was finally offered a tenured university position in 1980, decades after receiving her doctorate from Harvard and years after making major discoveries in her field. via Leeman family

By Delthia Ricks
Feb. 24, 2026

Susan E. Leeman, who helped reshape scientific understanding of how the brain sends chemical signals throughout the body, did not hesitate to leave the laboratory when her research demanded it — even if it meant visiting slaughterhouses.

In the late 1960s, while running a small lab at Brandeis University, she was trying to isolate a stress hormone and needed large quantities of the bovine hypothalamus, a cow’s version of the structure found deep in all mammalian brains. When supplies ran short at a local meatpacker in Boston, Dr. Leeman traveled to Chicago, home at the time to the sprawling Union Stock Yards, to secure fresh tissue.

What ultimately emerged was not the hormone that she sought but an elusive chemical called Substance P. ... Discovered decades earlier but never fully understood, it was finally identified by Dr. Leeman in 1970 as a neuropeptide, released by cells in the brain or spinal cord in response to pain. Three years later, she identified another neuropeptide. The two discoveries established her as a leading figure in neuroendocrinology.

Dr. Leeman died on Jan. 20 in Manhattan, at the home of her daughter Eve Leeman, where she had been living. She was 95. Her death was confirmed by another daughter, Jennifer Leeman.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/science/susan-e-leeman-dead.html

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

When she returned to Harvard Medical School in 1972, it was “one of the worst chapters in her career,” her daughter Eve, a psychiatrist, said in an interview. “She was recruited with the promise of a tenure-track position, but when she got there she faced an enormous amount of discrimination.”

Male colleagues would ask her to run errands for the department, her daughter said, in an effort to demean her.

Finally, in 1980, the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester offered her a full professorship. It was 50 miles from her home, but she accepted.

In 1992, Boston University appointed her professor of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics and named her director of the neuropeptide laboratory.

Dr. Leeman’s curiosity never waned, and “she retired incredibly late” — at nearly 90, her daughter Jennifer said. “She had a very long career and loved thinking about science and all the experiments she could be doing.”

[twodogsbarking]

2. A strong person. Very moving. Women rock. See what the world was missing by keeping them in the kitchen.

[imaginary girl]

3. Thanks for sharing this!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. De nada. I'm a big fan of the obits. If I were DU Czar, there'd be an Obituaries forum.

Actually there is. It's cleverly disguised as the American History forum.

And good afternoon.