Dr. Schmitt was chairman of the NRP from 1962 to 1974. In 1981 the NRP moved to Rockefeller University. Dr. Schmitt remained at MIT to continue his research in molecular genetics and he continued to pursue his research interests following his official retirement from MIT in 1969. Before his official retirement from MIT he had been the leader of a lively research program at MIT on the biophysics and biochemistry of nerves. The program included the isolation of the fibrous protein of nerves.
Most nerves are small and hard to get at chemically.
However the squid, a 10-armed marine animal related to the octopus, has very large nerve fibers from which pure axoplasm, the inner core of the nerve fiber, can be extracted with comparative ease. Born in St. Louis in 1903, Dr. Schmitt received the AB degree in 1924 and PhD in medical science in 1927 from Washington University. His father had wanted him to be a surgeon, but Dr. Schmitt ceased his medical studies to concentrate on the fields of chemistry and biology. In 1929 he was appointed to the faculty of Washington University and moved up in the ranks to become head of the department of zoology there by the time he came to MIT as a full professor. His many awards and honors included the Albert Lasker Award of the American Public Health Association, the Alsop Award of the American Leather Chemists Association and the T. Duckett Jones Award of the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation.