Good-bye to Gene Morkin

Gene Morkin, Cynthia Adam's husband, passed away recently.

A celebration of Dr. Morkin's life is being planned for Friday, September 11, 2009, noon to 1 p.m., at University Medical Center's DuVal Auditorium, 1501 N Campbell Ave., Tucson, Ariz.
By Daniel Stolte, AHSC Office of Public Affairs
July 31, 2009
Dr. Eugene Morkin, a founding co-director of what today is the Sarver Heart Center at The University of Arizona, died July 19 at his home in Punta del Este, Uruguay. He was 75.

When he retired in 2007, Morkin decided to fulfill a lifelong dream and live the rest of his life in a house on one of the world's premier beaches. He died at home under his doctor's care.

He is survived by his wife and UA colleague Cynthia Adamson, his two daughters, Christina Huggins and Carol Eklund, and grandchildren Jonathan Eklund, Christopher Eklund and Laura Eklund.


A native son of Oklahoma, Morkin graduated Magna Cum Laude from Oklahoma City University with a bachelor's degree in Chemistry.

In 1959, he was awarded his medical doctorate degree from the University of Oklahoma Medical School in the upper 10 percent of his class.

His training included internship and residency training at Bellevue Hospital Cornell Division and Presbyterian Hospital and a research fellowship in medicine, followed by a senior research fellowship of the New York Heart Association at Columbia University.

He became a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and was chief of cardiology at Beth Israel Medical Center prior to being recruited in 1974 to fill the C. Leonard Pfeiffer Chair in Internal Medicine at the UA in Tucson.

He was also professor in the UA departments of pharmacology and physiology. Morkin and world-renowned heart surgeon Dr. Jack G. Copeland, envisioned the formation of a heart center as a way to promote cardiovascular research and clinical care.

They led the efforts for creating the Heart Center at the UA which was approved by the Arizona Board of Regents in 1986 and started the necessary fundraising, continued by Dr. Gordon A. Ewy, to make the Heart Center a reality (renamed in 1998 the Sarver Heart Center).

Together with Copeland, Dr. Morkin served initially as one of the founding co-directors of the heart center and then as one of the co-directors of the Sarver Heart Center until his retirement.



Morkin's scientific contributions include the discovery of phospholamban, an intracellular protein regulating calcium levels in the heart, as well as the identification of myosin isozymes, proteins involved in the contractile function of the heart.

In addition, Morkin's laboratory provided insight into the molecular mechanisms of one of the processes underlying congestive heart failure.

The research also added to a developing body of knowledge about short patterned sequences of DNA that hormone receptors bind to as a general aspect of regulating gene expression. Research along those lines yielded a thyroid hormone analog that might result in clinical use as a potential treatment for heart failure.

Morkin and his wife, Cynthia, also liked to travel, including a journey to Bath in the United Kingdom, to visit the area where some of the earliest research on thyroid hormone had been done.

During his time at the UA Morkin was a good friend and mentor to many young scientists. Through his support and their work, his legacy will continue.