Eva King Killam (1920/21 – July 30, 2006)[1] was a research pharmacologist who studied the activity of drugs on the brain and behavior, developing animal models for epilepsy and opiate dependence.
[8] She spent a year in the Ph.D. program at Yale University, studying zoology, but returned home due to her father's illness.
[1] In 1989 Eva King Killam became the second female president of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET), following Marjorie Horning (1984).
[1] Killam published more than 150 papers in refereed journals, many studying the activity of drugs on neural mechanisms in the areas such as the extrapyramidal motor system, the hippocampus, and the brainstem reticular formation.
[2] The Killams spent a sabbatical in Marseilles, France in 1965 or 1966 with Robert Naquet,[9] and discovered that baboons suffered from a type of epilepsy.
[1][15][16][17] After returning to the United States, they set up their own lab, and used their animal model of epilepsy to develop a screening test for anticonvulsants.
[9] Later in their careers, they developed an animal model in morphine-dependent Rhesus monkeys with implications for opiate dependence[18] and HIV/AIDS research.
[9] In 1954, Eva King was the first woman to receive the John J. Abel Award for research in neuropsychopharmacology from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET).
[3] In 2002, Eva King Killam received the Paul Hoch Distinguished Service Award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.