NEW YORK -- Stanford Moore, the Nobel Prize winner for chemistry in 1972 for his research on enzymes in the body, died Monday in an apparent suicide after months of ill health, police said. He was 68.
Moore was found early Monday in his 20th-floor apartment in New York City, police said. A suicide note was found but no cause of death was determined.
An autopsy was scheduled for today.
The biochemist had been suffering for about a year from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, associates said. The progressive nerve disease is ultimately fatal.
'He was universally admired,' said an associate. 'He was very well organized in his work and was right at the top of the biochemical field.'
Moore, a professor at Rockefeller University in Manhattan, shared the 1972 Nobel prize in chemistry with the late Dr. William Stein, also of Rockefeller.
The two received the prize for their work in connection with protein research. In 1959, the two described the chemical structure of an enzyme that breaks down into ribonucleic acid (RNA), a crucial component of life.
Moore, who worked with Stein for 40 years, also invented the amino acid analyzer with him. The device automated the process of separating components of complex proteins, the most important constituents of the body.
Moore also received the Linderstrom-Lang Medal in Copenhagen in 1972 for his research.
The biochemist served as an assistant at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, later Rockefeller University, from 1939 until his death in a variety of posts, including assistant, associate member and professor.
In his last months at the university, which specializes in biomedical sciences, he headed a biochemistry laboratory and continued his protein research, an associate said.
'He was keeping up all his commitments and following the research very closely,' the associate said. The research involved studies of enzymes, or complex proteins, that act on nerve cells in brain and eye.
In addition, Moore served with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 1947 to 1949 and was a trustee of Vanderbilt University from 1974 until his death.
Moore was born Sept. 4, 1913, in Chicago. He received his B.A. from Vanderbilt in 1935 and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1938.
He was a member of the American Society of Biological Chemists and its president from 1966 to 1967.
He also was a member of British and Belgian biochemistry societies, the National Academy of the Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Chemical Society and was an honorary member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine.
Moore, who was single, left no survivors. A university spokesman said there were no plans for a funeral service.
