Gilbert Ashwell

Gilbert Ashwell (July 16, 1916 – June 27, 2014) was an American biochemist at the National Institutes of Health. He was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences for his work with Anatol Morell in isolating the first cell receptor.

Biography Ashwell was born in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1916. After high school, he initially went to Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts and transferred to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he received a B.A. in 1938 and M.S. in 1941. He then went to Columbia University in New York, which was closer to his hometown, to spend two years doing research. In 1950, Ashwell joined the National Institute of Arthritis, Metabolism, and Digestive Diseases. This Institute had grown and later split into two institutes, which are the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Ashwell worked at the latter as an emeritus scientist after his retirement. Ashwell explained that he was not specifically looking for the asialoglycoprotein when he found it.