Edward R. Bowman, Ph.D. (1927-2008).

Dr. Edward R. Bowman, Ph.D., Research Associate of Pharmacology and Toxicology, passed away on January 26th, 2008. He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Wilma; his daughter, Gay Bowman; brothers, William Bowman, Lance Bowman, and Garland Bowman; and sisters, Elizabeth Woody, Barbara Fogus, and Mary Shrader. Dr. Bowman was a US Army veteran and served in both World War II and the Korean War. After earning his bachelor's degree at Concord College in biology and chemistry, Dr. Bowman completed a master's degree in physiology at West Virginia University.

In the spring of 1956, he came to VCU as a research assistant to our Department and completed his doctoral degree in pharmacology in 1963. Since then, he has served on the Pharmacology and Toxicology faculty as a Research Associate.

In his career, he has dedicated a quarter-century to the study of the metabolism of nicotine in several mammalian species, including man. An especially notable contribution was his discovery of a simple, elegant and direct method for the synthesis of stereoisomers of nicotine. As pioneers in this field, he and his coworkers were the first to identify at least 10 metabolites of nicotine without the aid of some of the more modern instrumentation available today.

Since 1985, on behalf of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD), he was involved in the evaluation of over 500 compounds for their abuse liability. He has participated in preclinical studies in nonhuman primates on the duration of action and efficacy of depot preparations of naltrexone and buprenorphine. Comparable preparations are now used in the therapy of human opioid abuse.

As his research has progressed, he has authored or co-authored some 160 articles on his findings in some of the scientific field's leading publications. He belonged to several professional societies, including the American Chemical Society, American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. In addition to his research interests, Dr. Bowman has also participated in teaching in the schools of Pharmacy, Dentistry and Medicine. Ed, as he was called, was an unassuming and witty man. Above all, he was a gentleman. He will be missed.
 

 
Dr. Bowman, Wilma and daughter, Gay