About the Author

Dr. Candace B. Pert (1946-2013) was an internationally recognized neuroscientist and pharmacologist who played a key role in the discovery of the opioid receptor. Dr. Pert published over 250 research articles and was featured as an expert in Bill Moyers's PBS series Healing and the Mind, in PBS's Healing Quest. She was a significant contributor to the emergence of Mind-Body Medicine as an area of legitimate scientific research in the 1980s, earning her the title of "The Mother of Psychoneuroimmunology," and "The Goddess of Neuroscience" by her many fans. Translated into over ten languages, her bestselling book The Molecules of Emotion was a groundbreaking provides startling and decisive answers to these and other challenging questions that scientists and philosophers have pondered for centuries.

Deepak Chopra, MD, founder of the Chopra Foundation and Chopra Global, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a clinical professor of family medicine and public health at the University of California, San Diego, and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of more than ninety books, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. Time magazine has described Dr. Chopra as "one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century."

Reviews

"A clear and often riveting account of her research on the frontier of a new kind of science." --Smithsonian "Pert is at her best here when she details the sexism that permeates the upper echelons of the scientific establishment... She also does a very credible job of exploding the basic paradigm underlying much of modern human biology--that the brain and the body are two distinct systems...this is an important look at what really goes on inside the human body--and inside the scientific elite." --Publishers Weekly "[Pert] freely intermingles vibrant stories of her professional and personal life with her theories about neuropeptides...Her views on mind-body cellular communication mesh well with the concepts of energy held by many alternative therapies." --Kirkus "Candace B. Pert...has managed to take the study of the emotional connection to the body...and present this information in not only an understandable manner, but an enjoyable one." --Caroline Myss, Ph.D., author of Why People Don't Heal and How They Can "Reading Molecules of Emotion filled me with molecules associated with joy, inspiration, and hope." --Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom "Molecules of Emotion is a highly inspiring story of the search for the biochemical links between consciousness, mind, and body that also weaves in Pert's deeply personal search for truth. Highly recommended!" --Dean Ornish, M.D., author of Eat More, Weigh Less "Pick up the coolest, smartest, hardest-core mind-body book I've seen in a while." --Lynn Harris, New York Daily News "Dr. Pert has written one of the few truly spellbinding autobiographies of a scientist's life and discoveries that, remarkably, impels one to read and turn pages with the same urgency one applies to Michael Crichton's science fiction! This experience is all the more fascinating since Dr. Pert's story is true. She is the new Carl Sagan of the biomedical enterprise." --Michael D. Lumpkin, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor, Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Georgetown University Medical Center

Caroline Myss, Ph.D. author of Why People Don't Heal and How They Can Candace B. Pert...has managed to take the study of the emotional connection to the body...and present this information in not only an understandable manner, but an enjoyable one.

Intrigue at the "Palace": back-stabbing, deceit, shunning, love affairs. This is not the plot to I, Claudius but the account Pert gives of her time working at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a.k.a. the Palace. Yet her time at NIH is not the central point here. Nor are the molecules of the title, although they do get due coverage. Pert offers mainly an account of her journey from a conventional scientist to one who also embraces complementary and alternative medicine. The journey is long and not without price. She was passed over for the Lasker and Nobel prizes for her work on opiate receptors while colleagues were recognized; she believes that her development of a potential AIDS drug was thwarted owing to scientific dirty pool as well as her being a woman in a man's world. Along the way, she took control of her career, her life, and her personal mission. This is an eye-opening book for anyone who thinks that people with medical degrees act more civil or are more altruistic than the rest of us, though Pert also shows that some do rise above the fray. Recommended for academic and special libraries.‘Lee Arnold, Historical Soc. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia