Sunday 30 March 2014

Anna-Riitta Fuchs

Anna-Riitta Fuchs (1926-2014)
Anna-Riitta Fuchs was a reproductive endocrinologist whose great interest was the control of parturition. Much of her work centred on the posterior pituitary hormone oxytocin and its receptors in the myometrium.

I first met Anna-Riitta and her husband Fritz at their laboratory in Copenhagen shortly before they relocated to New York. I was a very green graduate student back then but was received with great warmth as they patiently explained their work on parturition in the rabbit. Those were heady times when a great debate was raging about the most important determinant of birth: was it oxytocin release or the withdrawal of progesterone from the placenta?

Anna-Riitta's many achievements include a D.Sc. from the University of Copenhagen and the Carl G. Hartman Award from the Society for the Study of Reproduction. Anna-Riitta was born 1926 in Helsinki and died last week in New York. A full obituary can be found here.

2 comments:

  1. Dear Mr. Carter, thanks for this nice post. I made a film about my Mom last year, and you can visit the film's microsite at www.iliveinlife.com. Best regards, Lars Fuchs

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  2. Hi Lars, Thank you for writing and for the link to the trailer. As you were born in Denmark, we probably have "met." Your parents invited me to their home and recall a garden with a swing. Quite possibly you were in it. I greatly admired your Mom and saw her occasionally at meetings. Your parents were good friends of my mentor Lars Philip Bengtsson. Best regards, Anthony

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