John Vane - Definition and Overview

Sir John Robert Vane (March 29, 1927 - November 19, 2004) was a British pharmacologist. His father was the son of immigrants from Russia and his mother came from a Worcestershire farming family. He was educated at King Edward's School in Edgbaston, Birmingham, and studied Chemistry at the University of Birmingham in 1944. Vane completed a doctorate in pharmacology from Oxford University in 1953.

He held a post at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences of the University of London in the Royal College of Surgeons of England for 18 years. During that time he developed certain bioassay techniques that led to important scientific discoveries. He won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1982 for his work on aspirin in which he discovered it inhibited prostaglandin biosynthesis.

In 1973 Vane left academia and took up the position of director of research of the Welcome Foundation. Twelve years later, however, he returned to academic life at the William Harvey Research Institute at St. Bartholmew's Hospital Medical School.

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