This second in a series of five interviews with Sir Stanley Peart FRS, professor of medicine at St Mary's Hospital Medical School from 1956 to 1987, concentrates mainly on his research in pharmacology and biochemistry, conducted in the 1940s and early 1950s. The interview begins with further exploration of a subject introduced at the end of Interview I: the relative contributions of Alexander Fleming, Ernst Chain and Howard Florey to the discovery and development of penicillin as a therapeutic agent. The discussion then moves on to Sir Stanley's two-year period as an MRC funded research student working on sympathin with John Gaddum in the Pharmacology Department of Edinburgh University. He talks of Gaddum and Marthe Vogt, the leading pharmacologists in the department, and he also mentions James Learmonth, who held both the chair of surgery and clinical surgery at Edinburgh. In 1947, Sir Stanley was the first person to demonstrate the release of noradrenaline after stimulation of sympathetic nerves, and in the interview he discusses how he obtained results, after an initial period of failure, when he switched from working on liver to spleen, and he describes the method of bioassay employed. 1947 was also the year of his marriage to Peggy Parkes, whom he met at St Mary's. Following his time in Edinburgh, he served in the RAF Medical Service, based in Ely, and was then offered a position in the Medical Unit of St Mary's Hospital by George Pickering. Sir Stanley talks of some of the people at St Mary's at this time, including: Richard Lovell, Brian Hudson, Tony James, Peter Sanderson and Harold Scarborough. He goes on to speak of his work with patients with phaeochromocytoma, a tumour of the adrenal gland producing uncontrolled and irregular secretion of catecholamines. His main research interest, however, was the renin-angiotensin system and in the interview Sir Stanley speaks of the contributions to the subject made by Irvine Page and his colleagues in the US, and the group led by Eduardo Braun-Menendez in Argentina. In the final part of the interview, Sir Stanley describes the preparation of renin from rabbit kidney, which he used to produce the pressor substance, hypertensin (later named angiotensin), in plasma derived from ox blood. He goes on to outline the preliminary steps he developed for a purification of angiotensin, a subject which is pursued further in Interview III with Dr Brigitte Askonas.
St Mary's Hospital Medical School, University of London; Alexander Fleming; Ernst Chain; Howard Florey; penicillin; George Pickering; Department of Pharmacology, University of Edinburgh; John Gaddum; Marthe Vogt; James Learmonth; splenic sympathin (noradrenaline); Peggy Peart (née Parkes); RAF Medical Service; Richard Lovell; Brian Hudson; Tony James; Peter Sanderson; Harold Scarborough; phaeochromocytoma; renin-angiotensin system; angiotensin purification
Biochemistry, Pharmacology, Research,
vid-161, MSVA_107
Permanent link to this resource: https://doi.org/10.24384/000055
Peart, StanleyBlythe, Max
Learning Resources
Original artefact: 1994 RADAR resource: 2017
Oxford, UK
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