(Hypertension. 2001;38:1245.)
© 2001 American Heart Association, Inc.
Editorials |
Sixtieth Anniversary of Angiotensin
The journal, very recently, paid tribute to the 100th anniversary of the discovery of renin by Tigerstedt and Bergman.1,2 Forty years later, 2 independent investigative groups in Buenos Aires and Indianapolis, headed by Drs Eduardo Braun-Menèndez and Irvine H. Page, respectively, identified the active polypeptide angiotensin that explained the pressor effect of renal hypertension.3–6 Thus, using relatively unsophisticated methods (in terms of present day technology), the precise peptide that produced experimental renal hypertension was identified.
In the accompanying online-only historical commentary, Drs Nidia Basso and Norberto Terragno provide a chronological history of the discovery by the Braun-Menèndez team from the University of Buenos Aires.7 Their account jibes well with an interview of Irvine Page that I taped just prior to his death for the National Library of Medicine under the aegis of a grant-in-aid by the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society.8 It was of interest that in the interview, Page indicated that both he and Braun-Menèndez were concerned about the dual terminology of their single discovery. Page then pointed out to me that while enjoying martinis with Braun-Menèndez at the University of Michigan meeting (identified by Drs Basso and Terragno), they arrived at a compromise nomenclature for angiotonin and hypertensin angiotensin. Their very brief paper, published in Science, is evidence of their joint unanimity.9
The 60th anniversary of the discovery of angiotensin by Braun-Menèndez and Page (and their teams) was recently celebrated in Buenos Aires at the 180th anniversary of the University of Buenos Aires. I am quite