BIO for Michael J Kuhar
I was born in Mercy Hospital in Scranton, PA. I grew up in the suburbs of Scranton: Peckville, Dickson City. and Eynon. My father worked in the defense industry and had his own business in later years. My mother was a homemaker.
In grade school and high school, I did well and graduated at the top of my class. I went to a good local college, the University of Scranton, where I majored in Physics and Philosophy. I performed well enough to receive several scholarships to outstanding graduate schools. I selected an Atomic Energy Commission fellowship to study nuclear physics at Harvard University. As noted below, I wasn’t happy with that decision and made changes.
I had two younger brothers, Robert who was six years younger than me, and David who is twelve years younger. Robert later worked for IBM and an oil company but died of cancer at age 59. David is doing well, retired in Salisbury, MD., where he spent his successful career in the eyeglass business.
My parents, of course, impacted me. My mother was very intelligent and gave me books such as the collected stories of Sherlock Holmes, which gave me a growing interest in science and evidence-based thinking. But, after my middle brother was born, she became depressed. After some time, she was given electroshock treatments for depression and then immediately did better. But the improvements did not last. While the treatments helped, she absolutely hated and then refused them.
I mention this because I was able to witness the difficult effect that mental illness can have on family life. I resolved at an early age that I would try to help the needy like my mom. This resolution was a recurrent theme in my career decisions. My father very much stressed education, and all of this directed me to have the career that I eventually did have. My dad was also clever, hardworking, non-racist, and stressed fairness. He was a gift.
While these circumstances molded and directed me, I’m fortunate to have had the motivation, mentoring and energy to go forward with those goals, especially the neuroscience of mental illness. When it comes to this part of my life, I feel like I did with my life what I had to do. Also, I was successful beyond my modest expectations. It is a great feeling. I did what I had to do and it turned out well!
Returning to my career, I mentioned that I went to graduate school in physics at Harvard. But I was not set on physics as a career. At one point in college, I wanted to switch to premedical studies, but it never really happened. I focused on math and physics because I did well in it, and a mentor in high school stressed that I had a gift for math. So, I went with it. But it did not last.
When I got to Harvard, I became sure that I wanted to work in the life sciences, possibly the neuroscience of mental illness. So, with the help of a friend, I transferred to The Johns Hopkins University Dept of Biophysics which was really a transition from math and physics to the life sciences. They gave me a fellowship. There I took all the necessary biology and related courses that would allow me to work in some aspect of the mental health field.
Then a great thing happened. While preparing to work in the mental health area, I found that the Pharmacology Dept at the Johns Hopkins Medical School (led by Dr Paul Talalay) would allow me to do my PhD research there in brain research. Pharmacology would make me employable by the drug industry if I needed that, and I needed to be practical and get a job someday. This meant that I would be studying the effects of drugs and medicines on the brain, even mentally ill brains. It was like a dream come true. I had found a home for my future. I passed my oral PhD qualifying exams in 1968 and finished my Ph D research and dissertation in Neuropharmacology in 1970. Much of this success was because I had a brilliant mentor in Graduate School (and in my early career as well), Dr Sol Snyder. The Johns Hopkins University is, in my opinion, a marvelous place where I had a great fit, and I grew a lot.
Having mentioned mentoring, I must include two additional people. One is Sister Mary Peter, a nun and my math teacher in high school. She helped me believe in myself and was a very important mentor for me. Another is Dr Marty Appleton who taught me chemistry and research in college and who challenged and inspired me.
After I passed my PhD oral qualifying exams in 1968, I felt a little safer in my future and proposed marriage to a fellow graduate student, Joan Barenburg. We spent the next 40 years together before she died from cancer. We have two great children and I have two super grandchildren as well.
When it was time to send our children to college, Joan went back to school and got a master’s degree in social work. Her hard work helped support education for our young ones. My hat is off to Joan for her motherly efforts.
After receiving my PhD, it was customary to do advanced training in research and I chose to go to Yale, Dept of Psychiatry, and work with Drs George Aghajanian and Robert Roth. I got training there that helped me get started in my independent career.
Then I returned to The Johns Hopkins Dept of Pharmacology in the school of medicine as an assistant professor. It was my first real job at age 26. Because of my interests, I also had a second appointment in the Dept of Psychiatry. I grew into teaching about drugs and the brain, and I began a research program that focused on the brain, how it worked and how it failed in disease. Topics that I focused on included neurotransmitter transporters, acetylcholine synthesis, autoradiographic localization of receptors, measurement of receptors in the living brain by PET scanning, peptide neurotransmitters, axonal flow of presynaptic receptors, the cocaine receptor, effects of separating mother rats from babies on drug addiction, selective dopamine transporter inhibitors and structure, treatments for drug users, CART peptide systems in brain and periphery, and yet other topics. I was successful enough that I was promoted up the ladder to full professor before the age of forty. I was also one of the very first members of the Solomon Snyder Department of Neuroscience. My professional resume/curriculum vitae lists the details of these achievements.
In 1985, I decided to make a change and take a job at the National Institute of Drug Abuse as head of a new branch, the Neuroscience Branch. This job would allow me to continue my work on the brain. My best work and most highly cited paper of that time was the identification of the cocaine receptor for addiction by binding techniques. The cocaine “receptor site” was the dopamine transporter. I was greatly pleased that I could do such a nice piece of work. It ultimately led to two invitations to the White House and an invitation to testify for the NIH budget at a congressional subcommittee hearing. I felt respected, and I received several other prestigious awards (1).
Also, at this time, I began a very productive collaboration with Dr Ivy Carroll, a medicinal chemist. Surprisingly, there were a lot of opportunities for discovery by making new molecules similar to cocaine. These new molecules were then patented. Among these patents was a chemical that would be a good treatment medicine for cocaine addicts, and a great diagnostic procedure for Parkinson’s Disease. But be cause of finding limitations and other factors, these discoveries did not become routine in clinical medicine. But they were part of a dynamic picture that led to other findings.
The next step in my career was to return to academia at Emory University. I chose Emory because the offer was very substantial and there were good scientists there that I knew. I finished my career there and retired at age 79. While at Emory, my research focused on several topics, but one major focus was a brain chemical called CART peptide. This chemical was associated with cocaine and feeling good and was related to both addiction, depression, and obesity. We carried out many basic studies on CART and these are built upon and referenced even today.
As someone known in neuropharmacology throughout my career, I was invited to join various boards of directors, be presidents of various societies, and I received many honors. I was the first president of the new International Drug and Alcohol Research Society, and I founded and was the first editor of the journal for that society. This Journal is now the main journal for the International Narcotics Research Conference (INRC) and the International Drug and Alcohol Abuse Society (IDARS). Its name is: Advances in Drug and Alcohol Research (Published by Frontiers).
There are many ways to measure the success of a career. One is how high you move “up the ladder.” Even though I never wanted to be an academic chairman or dean, but I headed research divisions for 25 years. I helped develop very outstanding scientists, doctors, and teachers. Another measure is productivity; publications are a good measure of this and overall, and I have more than 900 publications of all types. I taught dozens of courses and trained many students, fellows, and visitors in research. A book I wrote, The Addicted Brain, is in six languages. I served on all the relevant committees and was an active member in all of the relevant professional societies. I was the president of several societies, was invited to the white house twice, and testified to a congressional subcommittee for the NIH budget. One of the best measures of scientific success is citations – how many times your colleagues refer to your work; I have more than 76,000 lifetime citations (2), something I am very proud of. Overall, my career was more successful than I ever could have dreamt as a kid from northeastern Pennsylvania. I attribute mentoring, academic excellence, hard work, persistence and even some luck as keys for this success.
One of the best things about my career is the number of amazing colleagues that I met and still have friendships with after many decades. Many are among the finest people I have ever known.
Eventually, as I became an older faculty member, I decided to re-direct and expand my expertise into ethics. Emory has an outstanding Center for Ethics, and I taught a variety of topics in that field to post docs, grad students, MD-PhD students, and others. I wrote some articles and books on ethical topics as well (3). They have been well received. This was an excellent later career choice, and I enjoyed it very much.
After about 10 years at Emory, a tragedy happened. My wife Joan was diagnosed with lung cancer. Despite heroic efforts by doctors, she passed away in 2008. It was a difficult time for all of us. My children and friends were supportive and helpful. Her memorial service was attended by hundreds.
Also, along the way, many colleagues and friends succumbed to various illnesses and passed. They are missed. As I face retirement, I am healthy, with enough resources, and ready for the adjustment. It has gone well.
Before I close, it is worth noting that it was not all peaches, cream and prizes. As expected, there were conflicts, ethical concerns, misunderstandings, jealousies, human errors, and sometimes just bad luck along with all the good. The unappealing side of human nature wins out more than we like, and evil can overpower good more often than we like, especially when good people stand by and do nothing. Judgments and actions are sometimes made without a full understanding of the facts. To find some inner peace, we want to blame the victim which is so easy. Some have paid a high price to have the career they wanted. This is the way it seems to be. Fortunately, these events were realtively rare. It is heartening that so many try to do it right. They are our everyday heroes. I am grateful for the many friends and colleagues who have supported me throughout.
Additional Information:
1. Awards are listed on my CV. https://sites.google.com/view/mike-kuhars-resume, in the section called "Professional honors and other experience.
2. Pubs reference shown on my CV
3. Books on ethics are listed in my CV and are available on Amazon: search under my name Michael Kuhar:
Essays for Living.
The art and ethics of being a good colleague.
Research ethics in the life sciences.
4. Book on drug addiction, now in 6 languages, also on Amazon: The Addicted Brain.
5. The Neuroscience Dept at Johns Hopkins, headed by the outstanding scientist Sol Snyder, officailly began on July 1, 1980. A newspaper article lists me as one of the founding faculty, and I receved a letter from the dean at the time indicating that I was a first faculty member. A note in my personal journal dated July 16, 1980, says "A Momentous day. Our first faculty meeting for the new department.t began at 2PM abd ennded around 4:30. We discussed the activities that the new dept would have to carry out." Me, Joe Coyle, and of course Sol Snyder were the first faculty in the new dept.
6. An additional source of personal material is published in an interview/conversation with Mike Kuhar. This interview describes the personal side of Mike Kuhar, his motivations, and how he developed his research program. It is in the journal called Addiction. Volume105, Issue 4, April 2010, Pages 593-600. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2010.02897.x (PMID: 20403012, DOI: 10.1111/j.1360-0443.2010.02897.x)
7. Also, information can be found in the following articles (links were functional as of January 2026).
Michael Kuhar, PhD | Emory University | Atlanta GA
Michael Kuhar, Ph.D., Instructor | Coursera
michael kuhar phd - Search Images
Michael J. Kuhar | Encyclopedia MDPI
Kuhar PhD, Michael J books - All books by Kuhar PhD, Michael J author | BookScouter.com
Professors Emeriti- Pharmacology and Chemical Biology | Emory School of Medicine
Michael Kuhar, PhD | Profile | Emory School of Medicine
AAAS and Emory University announce 2018 Fellows