John Hughes (pharmacologist)
John Pinnington Hughes (born January 6, 1942 in London ) is a British pharmacologist. He is known for discovering the enkephalins .
Live and act
Hughes holds a BA and Ph.D. from King's College London. before joining Yale University Medical School in New Haven , Connecticut as a research assistant . 1969 brought Hans Kosterlitz Hughes to the Department of dependence research of the University of Aberdeen , the deputy head of Hughes in 1973 and remained until 1977th While it had already been shown that membrane components of the brain have receptors with a high and specific affinity for various narcotics , Kosterlitz postulated that there must be natural ligands for these receptors, endogenous ( endogenous ) opioids . In 1973 Hughes began actively looking for evidence to support Kosterlitz's thesis. Based on the fact that opioids inhibit the release of neurotransmitters , Hughes was able to show that brain extracts inhibit muscle contraction in the isolated ductus deferens (vas deferens) of the mouse, while the opioid antagonist naloxone reversed this inhibition. Together with other scientists, Hughes was finally able to isolate and characterize two pentapeptides in 1975 , which were called enkephalins , Met-enkephalin and Leu-enkephalin. Both are ligands for the δ receptor (an opioid receptor) and were the first known representatives of the group of endorphins .
In 1983 Hughes became - after some as a lecturer (later professor) for pharmacological biochemistry at Imperial College London - director of the Parke-Davis research center in Cambridge and at the same time professor at the University of Cambridge , where he continued to research opioids. Here he dealt, among other things, with ligands of the κ receptor (also an opioid receptor ), which in particular were expected to have a reduced potential for dependence. Further work dealt with peptoids which bind to the CCK -B receptor and have a pronounced anxiolytic effect, increase the analgesic effect of opioids and prevent their tolerance development . Today (as of 2012) Hughes is an Emeritus Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge University.
Awards (selection)
- 1978 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research
- 1981 Feldberg Foundation Prize
- 1993 Fellow of the Royal Society
- 2010 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Aberdeen
Fonts (selection)
- Centrally Acting Peptides. Macmillan Press, London 1978, ISBN 978-0-333-23476-1 .
- Opioids Past, Present and Future. Taylor & Francis, London 1984, ISBN 978-0-850-66255-9 .
- The Neuropeptide Cholecystokinin (CCK). Ellis Horwood, Chichester or Halsted Press, New York 1989, ISBN 978-0-470-21469-5 .
Web links
- Professor John Hughes at the University of Cambridge (cam.ac.uk)
- Archive item details in the Archives of the Royal Society , London
- Photo at sciencephoto.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hughes; John in the Royal Society Archives (royalsociety.org); Retrieved June 5, 2012.
- ^ Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award 1978 Winners at the Lasker Foundation (laskerfoundation.org); accessed on February 13, 2016.
- ↑ Previous Winners at the Feldberg Foundation (feldbergfoundation.org); accessed on February 13, 2016.
- ^ Fellows of the Royal Society (royalsociety.org); Retrieved June 4, 2012.
- ↑ Leading scientist and composer among those to be honored by University at the University of Aberdeen (abdn.ac.uk); Retrieved June 5, 2012.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hughes, John |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Hughes, John Pinnington |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British pharmacologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 6, 1942 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |