Salvador Moncada

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Salvador Enrique Moncada was born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras on December 3, 1944.

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[edit] Background

He is the director of the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research at the University College London. In El Salvador, he qualified to be a doctor because he was interested in cardiovascular science. His interest was triggered by working with the Peruvian pharmacologist, Augusto Campos who, at that time, was visiting the University of El Salvador. In February 1971, he earned a fellowship to Sir John Robert Vane's laboratory at the Royal College of Surgeons, in England. In Sir John Vane's laboratory, he was part of the discovery that aspirin-like drugs inhibit prostaglandin biosynthesis.

He felt that he owed something to his native country, Honduras; therefore, in 1974, he went back to do some research. He then went to UK where he re-joined the Wellcome research laboratories.

He is married to Her Royal Highness Princess Maria-Esmeralda of Belgium. They have a daughter, Alexandra Leopoldine Moncada (born in 1998), and a son, Leopoldo Daniel Moncada (born in 2001).

He is the author or co-author of almost 600 papers, including his work on aspirin, prostacyclin, and nitric oxide.

[edit] Recognitions

In 1990 he was awarded with Spanish "Prince of Asturias Scientific and Technological Research Award" [1][2].

In 1992 the "Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science" awarded him the "Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine" [3].

There is a controversy of his unjust exclusion of 1998 Nobel Prize of Medicine[4][5][6].

In 2001 the University of Dundee conferred upon him the "Doctors of Laws, Honoraris Causa", during this event, Professor Sir Philip Cohen said: [7]

".... Over the next three years he solved the mechanism of action of aspirin, which was published in three classic papers for which he received a Ph.D. in 1973.

... Over the next few years he carried out further groundbreaking research led the team that discovered prostacyclin. This compound, which dilates blood vessels and suppress the aggregation of blood platelets, is still in use today for the treatment of Primary Pulmonary Hypertension and keeps about 800 people alive each year, mainly relatively young women, who are waiting for lung transplants.

Salvador Moncada embarked on his third major piece of work in 1986, which led him to prove that the so-called Endothelial Relaxing Factor identified by Furchgott was none other than the gas nitric oxide. This remarkable finding then led him to discover the enzyme in the body that makes this molecule. The discovery of nitric oxide immediately explained a 100 year old puzzle as to why the compound nitro-glycerine was effective in treating Angina, because this substance was converted to nitric oxide in the tissues. Nitric oxide is now in clinical use to help lung maturation in premature babies. In addition, many pharmaceutical companies are not trying to develop drugs that switch off one of the enzymes that makes nitric oxide for the treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases, such as Asthma and Rheumatoid Arthritis. It is widely recognised as a travesty of justice that Salvador Moncada did not share the Nobel Prize for Medicine that was awarded to Furchgott in 1998 for the discovery of nitric oxide.

Salvador Moncada's discoveries aroused huge excitement in the scientific world and, according to the Institute for Scientific Information, he was the world's second most highly cited scientist from 1990-1997. Not surprisingly, he was also the most cited UK-based scientists of the 1990s with as many citations as the second and third most cited scientists in the list put together. Alas, I have to admit to you that the unfortunate scientists in second and third place on the list were none other than our own Sir David Lane and myself!

In 1985, Salvador Moncada became Head of the Division of Therapeutic Research at Wellcome, succeeding in this position our current Chancellor Sir James Black from whom he will shortly receive his honorary degree. The following year, he became Head of UK Research in the Wellcome Pharmaceutical Company and, over the next ten years, several drugs were developed under his direction for the treatment of epilepsy, migraine and malaria. In 1996, after 20 years at Wellcome, he moved to Academia to become Director of the new Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research at University of College London.

Salvador Moncada has naturally received many honours for his discoveries, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1988 and a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA in 1994, the same year that he was awarded a Royal Medal. He has also received many scientific prizes including the Amsterdam Prize for Medicine and the Spanish Prince of Asturias Prize for Science and Technology."

On August 14, 2006 the Honduran Government awarded him with an honorary medal for his outstanding research works for more than 40 years. On August 15, 2006 Honduras National Congress granted awarded him another medal and a recognition[8].

[edit] Trivia

  • There is a Fundación Salvador Moncada para la Ciencia e Investigación (Salvador Moncada Foundation for Science and Research) in Honduras[9].

[edit] References