Susan Leeman, 95, Dies; Explored How the Brain Influences the Body

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Source: New York Times

Susan Leeman, 95, Dies; Explored How the Brain Influences the Body

In an era of overt sexism in the sciences, she made two major discoveries, including identifying a chemical signal in the brain linked to chronic pain and migraines.


Susan Leeman with her son, Raphael, in 1982. She was finally offered a tenured university position in 1980, decades after receiving her doctorate from Harvard and years after making major discoveries in her field. via Leeman family

By Delthia Ricks
Feb. 24, 2026

Susan E. Leeman, who helped reshape scientific understanding of how the brain sends chemical signals throughout the body, did not hesitate to leave the laboratory when her research demanded it — even if it meant visiting slaughterhouses.

In the late 1960s, while running a small lab at Brandeis University, she was trying to isolate a stress hormone and needed large quantities of the bovine hypothalamus, a cow’s version of the structure found deep in all mammalian brains. When supplies ran short at a local meatpacker in Boston, Dr. Leeman traveled to Chicago, home at the time to the sprawling Union Stock Yards, to secure fresh tissue.

What ultimately emerged was not the hormone that she sought but an elusive chemical called Substance P. ... Discovered decades earlier but never fully understood, it was finally identified by Dr. Leeman in 1970 as a neuropeptide, released by cells in the brain or spinal cord in response to pain. Three years later, she identified another neuropeptide. The two discoveries established her as a leading figure in neuroendocrinology.

Dr. Leeman died on Jan. 20 in Manhattan, at the home of her daughter Eve Leeman, where she had been living. She was 95. Her death was confirmed by another daughter, Jennifer Leeman.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/science/susan-e-leeman-dead.html