Hypertension. 1999;34:371
(Hypertension. 1999;34:371.)
© 1999 American Heart Association, Inc.
Council Honorees and the Nobel Prize
Our Continued Anniversary Celebration
Edward D. Frohlich, MD, Editor-in-Chief
L. Gabriel Navar, PhD
Richard N. Ré, MD, Associate Editors
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Introduction
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 Introduction
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In the continuing celebration of the 20th
anniversary of
Hypertension,
we are once again pleased to
salute those special honorees and
lecturers of the Council for High
Blood Pressure Research (CHBPR)
who later received the Nobel Prize for
their seminal research.
Each of these individuals either had been
selected as a recipient
of the Stouffer, Ciba, or Novartis Award or was
a featured speaker
invited to present the Corcoran or other
important special lectures.
Sometime after being acknowledged by the
Council, they were
selected to receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine for
their outstanding
work.
In this month's issue, we honor Sir James W. Black. It was in 1976
that Sir James Black (then head of biological research at Smith Kline &
French Laboratories) received the Ciba Award at the Council for High
Blood Pressure Research meeting. Dr Raymond P. Ahlquisht, PhD, also
received the Ciba Award that year for his exposition of the concept of
alpha- and beta-adrenergic receptor sites; and, Sir James Black was
recognized for the development of beta-adrenergic receptor
antagonists. It was later, in 1988, that Sir James Black
and Doctors Gertrude B. Elion and George H. Hitchings were jointly
honored with the Nobel Prize for their annunciation of the fundamental
concept of the physiological receptor site, leading
to the development of specific receptor-blocking pharmacological agents
that inhibit those naturally occurring
physiological receptor sites. Sir James Black, now
at the King's College Hospital Medical School in London, developed two
important drugs at that time: propanolol, the first widely used
beta-adrenergic receptor inhibitor; and cimetidine, a
histamine receptor inhibitor. These pharmaceutical
discoveries arose from his systematic research on the interaction
between these very specific cellular receptors and the very specific
naturally occurring chemical agents that attach to them and thereby
initiate their intracellular actions. The beta-adrenergic receptor
blocking agents were first used in the early 1960s for the treatment of
hypertension and angina pectoris, and they continue to be recommended
by many national and World Health Organization guidelines for initial
antihypertensive therapy to this day. Doctors Elion and Hitchings,
working together for nearly 40 years at the Burroughs Wellcome
Laboratories, designed a variety of other receptor-blocking agents that
have been found effective against leukemia, autoimmune disorders, and
other diseases. This month, Hypertension is delighted to
highlight these accomplishments.
