Sara Szuchet, DPhil, Professor Emerita of Neurology at the University of Chicago, died on July 31, 2024, at the age of 91. She was a pioneering multiple sclerosis (MS) researcher and trailblazer for women in academia who served on the UChicago faculty for 45 years.
Szuchet’s research focused on the origins and development of MS, a neurodegenerative disease in which the immune system attacks the protective sheath (myelin) that covers nerve fibers and causes communications problems between the brain and the rest of the body. Szuchet believed that in order to understand the breakdown of myelin, researchers first needed to understand how it is formed. Her lab developed in vitro models of the cells that form the myelin sheath to study their biology and function.
Szuchet grew up in a small village in Argentina. After graduating from college in Buenos Aires, she pursued graduate studies at Cambridge University in England. From Cambridge, she went to Princeton University as a post-doctoral fellow in physical biochemistry. In 1966, she took her first faculty position at the State University of New York at Buffalo to study myosin, a muscle protein. However, when her older sister was diagnosed with MS, she resolved to learn more about the disease at a time when little was known about it.
Her research caught the attention of Barry Arnason, MD, founding Chair of the new Department of Neurology at UChicago, who recruited her to lead a team focused on neuroimmunology research in 1978. She became one of a small, select group of tenured female professors of her generation, and continued serving on the UChicago faculty for 45 years until she retired in 2023.
In a message to the Department of Neurology, current Chair Shyam Prabhakaran, MD, wrote, “Sara was a passionate individual with strong principles and opinions. She was driven by a desire to find answers to questions and rigorously solve them through scientific inquiry. Fueled both by innate curiosity and a strong desire to advance, she chose to devote her life to scientific research because it was what gave her the most joy and satisfaction out of life.”
