Candace Beebe Pert was an American neuroscientist and pharmacologist who discovered the opiate receptor, the cellular binding site for endorphins in the brain.
In 1974 Candace Pert earned a Ph.D. in pharmacology from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she worked in the laboratory of Solomon Snyder and discovered the brain’s opiate receptor. Previously, she had completed her undergraduate studies in biology, cum laude, in 1970, from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. Pert conducted a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship with the Department of Pharmacology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine from 1974-1975. She conducted research at the National Institute of Mental Health from 1975 to 1987. Pert is the author of Molecules of Emotion. She appeared as one of the experts in Bill Moyers 1993 PBS video production, "Healing and the Mind", and in the 2004 film What the #$*! Do We Know!?.
Beginning in 1975, Pert held a variety of research positions with the National Institute of Mental Health. In 1983, she became the Chief of the Section on Brain Biochemistry of the Clinical Neuroscience Branch, the only female chief at NIMH. She left to found and direct a private biotech laboratory in 1987. Pert was a Research Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, DC. In her latter years, she was with RAPID Pharmaceuticals.
Pert was an internationally recognized pharmacologist who published over 250 scientific articles on peptides and their receptors and the role of these neuropeptides in the immune system. Her earliest work as a researcher involved the discovery of opiate receptors and the actions of receptors. She had an international reputation in the field of neuropeptide and receptor pharmacology, and chemical neuroanatomy. Pert also lectured worldwide on these and other subjects, including her theories on emotions and mind-body communication. Her popular book, Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel, (Scribner, 1997) expounded on her research and theories. She was featured in The Washingtonian magazine (December 2001) as one of Washington's fifty "Best and Brightest" individuals. She held a number of patents for modified peptides in the treatment of psoriasis, Alzheimer's disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, stroke and head trauma. One of these, Peptide T, had been considered for the treatment of AIDS and neuroAIDS. The results of a placebo-controlled, three site, 200+ patient NIH-funded clinical trial which focused on neurocognitive improvements, was conducted between 1990 and 1995. The results showed that Peptide T was not significantly different from placebo on the study primary end points, tests of brain function. However Peptide T was associated with improved performance (memory and learning) in the subgroup of patients with more severe cognitive impairment. A long-delayed analysis of antiviral effects from the NIH study showed peripheral viral load (combined plasma and serum) was significantly reduced in the DAPTA-treated group. An eleven-person study for Peptide T effects on cellular viral load showed reductions in infected monocyte reservoir to undetectable levels in most of the patients. Pert was developing orally active peptide anti-inflammatory treatments for pain and Alzheimer's Disease and studies for treatment of HIV persistent viral reservoirs.

Source: Wikipedia.org