Roger Guillemin and his long-time co-worker Andrew Victor Schally have made major contributions to understanding the brain-endocrine interconnection in controlling body processes. They have shown that the brain produces hormones that signal the endocrine glands to begin or end production of their own hormones. One or both of the scientists isolated several of these hormones, including thyrotropin-releasing factor (TRH), luteinizing hormone releasing hormone (LHRH, which controls sex hormones), somatostatin (which inhibits production of growth hormone), and growth hormone-releasing factor (GHRF). They also isolated the opiate-like peptides called endorphins. For their work, Guillemin and Schally shared part of the 1977 Nobel prize for physiology or medicine.

Guillemin was born in Dijon, France, studied medicine at the University of Dijon, and was awarded his medical degree in 1949 through the University of Lyon. In 1953 he traveled to the University of Montreal's Institute of Experimental Medicine and Surgery to study with its founder...