Furchgott was one of three American pharmacologists who received the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries related to the role of nitric oxide as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system. His co-recipients were Ferid Murad and Louis Ignarro.

Not to be confused with nitrous oxide (a gas used in anesthesia), nitric oxide is a colorless, odorless gas that, thanks to initial work by these three Nobel laureates and a flurry of subsequent research by others, now has widespread potential including the treatment of heart disease, shock, cancer, impotence, and pulmonary hypertension--a potentially fatal condition in premature infants. In 1994, the respected journal Science declared nitric oxide as its "molecule of the year."

Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Furchgott moved with his parents to Orangeburg in the same state, where his maternal grandparents lived and his father set up a clothing store. There, the youthful Furchgott is...