Monell Chemical Senses Center gets a new leader

The Monell Chemical Senses Center, long known for its pioneering work on taste and smell, is getting a new director whose interests extend to other parts of the body.

The research institute announced Monday that molecular biologist Robert F. Margolskee would assume the leadership role on Oct. 1, taking over from Gary K. Beauchamp, who is stepping down after 24 years.

Margolskee, 59, studies the role of sensory proteins called taste receptors - so named because they were first found in the taste buds, but more recently discovered in the intestines, pancreas, and other organs.

Such receptors are involved in the interplay among hormones, glucose levels, and appetite, and thus could play a role in obesity, diabetes, and other ills, said Margolskee, who came to Monell in 2009 from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

Beauchamp, 71, will remain a member of the faculty at the independent research institute, said to be the world's largest devoted to taste and smell.

He has contributed to such prominent discoveries as the first experimental demonstration that humans can reduce their liking for salt.

Founded in 1968, Monell faces some of the same financial pressures as other research institutions, in an era when government funding of the sciences has not always kept pace with inflation. Margolskee said one of his priorities was to increase the number of private donors to the center, along with recruiting new faculty.

In the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2013, Monell reported revenue of $16.7 million, down from $16.8 million the year before, according to publicly available tax forms.

Center officials said 62 percent of the total came from government sources such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, followed by 25 percent from industry and 13 percent from private foundations, individuals, and others. Beauchamp's salary was listed as $250,000 that year; Margolskee said his would be about the same.

The center has 147 employees, including 22 faculty scientists.

Though Margolskee's research has ventured beyond the nose and mouth, he stressed that under his leadership, taste and smell will remain a strength. After all, Monell has a big golden statue of a nose and mouth outside its main entrance on Market Street.

Outsiders say one of the center's strengths is a faculty with diverse backgrounds - including biology, chemistry, psychology, and genetics.

"It's a unique place," said Richard L. Doty, director of the Smell and Taste Center at the nearby University of Pennsylvania. "It's a rich environment for interdisciplinary research."

Margolskee, who trained at Harvard and Johns Hopkins Universities, agreed, calling Monell "a fantastic intellectual environment." He praised Beauchamp.

"I certainly wouldn't have come to this place if he hadn't been such a terrific and inspirational leader," Margolskee said.

Though Beauchamp became director in 1990, he had been at Monell for 19 years before that, arriving just a few years after the center's founding, when it was initially affiliated with Penn.

The center takes its name from the New York-based Ambrose Monell Foundation, which made an initial pledge of $1 million in 1967 and continues to support the institution.

As for that gold statue, by sculptor Arlene Love, Beauchamp admits that he did not like it at first, when the design was proposed in the early 1970s. Nor did his fellow scientists, some of whom found it too literal.

But the donor who offered to fund the statue liked the design, so her vote carried the day. Beauchamp acknowledges that it soon became an iconic symbol of the center's mission.

"She was completely right," he said, "and we were completely wrong."