Gilbert J. Mannering

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(1917 - 2004)

Gilbert Mannering, Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Minnesota from 1962 to 1987, died of natural causes, March 20, 2004. A man of seemingly endless energy (he toured the Amazon basin at the age of 83!) and an unbridled zest for life, he was one of the fortunate few who enjoyed an extraordinarily hardy constitution and was rarely, if ever, ill until late in life when he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and very late in life when he endured vascular dementia. Professor Mannering had been a regular/emeritus member of the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics since 1956. A memorial service celebrating his life was held on April 3, 2004, at the University Club (his favorite local haunt), St. Paul, Minnesota.
Born March 9, 1917, in Racine, Wisconsin, Gilbert J. Mannering was a graduate of Horlick (of malted milk fame) High School, Racine, where he was an active participant in chorus and track. He went on to earn B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, all in biochemistry and all from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1940, 1943 and 1944, respectively. His M.S. and Ph.D. advisor was Professor Conrad A. Elvehjem, discoverer of niacin, and later, Lasker Awardee (1952) and president of the University (1958-1962).
Upon receiving his doctorate degree, the newly minted Dr. Mannering joined Parke-Davis and Company’s Vitamin Research Laboratory in Detroit, Michigan where he was employed as a Senior Research Biochemist from mid-1944 to early 1950. He then spent four years as a civilian scientist (consultant to the Chemistry Department, Civilian 406th Medical General Laboratory) for the United States Army in Tokyo, Japan from 1950 to early 1954.
Rejecting an offer to head the Department of Nutrition at the American University in Lebanon, Dr. Mannering then returned to his alma mater, serving briefly (only until mid-1954) as a Research Associate, then as an Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology until mid-1958, and finally as an Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology until September, 1962. During this time, Professor Mannering served the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory as a consultant with special expertise in toxicology.
In September 1962, Dr. Frederick Shideman, then chairman of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Wisconsin Medical School, accepted a similar position at the University of Minnesota and took almost all of the department’s faculty, including promoted-to-full Professor Mannering, and graduate and post-doctoral students with him. Upon retirement in 1987, Professor Mannering assumed the title of Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology, a position that he held almost to the end of his life.
First at Wisconsin and then at Minnesota, Professor Mannering went on to become one of the pioneers in fields of drug metabolism and biochemical toxicology. Despite becoming an academician when he was already 37 years old, at which time he had co-authored a mere ten primary research papers, he ended up authoring or co-authoring a total of over 125 primary research papers and over 25 reviews. He gave invited lectures at more than 40 American universities and in at least 20 countries. In collaboration with his colleagues, his observations led to the discovery of numerous ‘firsts’ in these fields. For example, his laboratory was one of the first, if not the first, to recognize and demonstrate the importance of measuring initial rates when quantifying in vitro rates of drug metabolism and kinetic constants thereof [J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther. 123:171-179, 1958; J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther. 127:187-190, 1959; Biochem. Pharmacol. 13:1007-1016, 1964], and his laboratory provided the first physical evidence for the existence of more than one drug-metabolizing cytochrome P450 [Biochem. Biophys. Res. Comm. 24:668-674, 1966].
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