John Hughes (neuroscientist)
{{short description|British neuroscientist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2017}}
{{Use British English|date=December 2017}}
{{Infobox scientist
|name=John Hughes
|nationality=British
|birth_date={{Birth date and age|df=yes|1942|01|06}}[http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/10.1093/ww/9780199540884.001.0001/ww-9780199540884-e-21102 Hughes, Prof. John], Who's Who 2018, A & C Black, 2017
|fields=Neuroscience, Pharmacology
|workplaces=Yale School of Medicine
Aberdeen University
Imperial College London
University of Cambridge
|patrons=Hans Kosterlitz
|education=King's College London
|known_for=Co-discovery of enkephalins
| doctoral_students = Fiona Marshall{{cite thesis|degree=PhD|publisher=University of Cambridge|url=|doi=|title=Cholecystokinin/dopamine interactions in the rat basal ganglia|first= Fiona|last=Marshall|date=1990|id={{EThOS|uk.bl.ethos.386170}}|website=|oclc=|hdl=}}
|awards=Lasker award (1978)
Fellow of the Royal Society (1993)
|website={{URL|1=http://www.wolfson.cam.ac.uk/people/professor-john-hughes}}
}}
John Hughes (born 6 January 1942) is a British neuroscientist who shared the 1978 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research for the discovery of met-enkephalin and leu-enkephalin.{{Cite web|url=http://www.wolfson.cam.ac.uk/people/professor-john-hughes|title=Professor John Hughes|publisher=Wolfson College, University of Cambridge|accessdate=8 January 2017}}{{Cite web|url=https://royalsociety.org/people/john-hughes-11657/|title=John Hughes: Biography|publisher=The Royal Society|accessdate=23 January 2017}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.laskerfoundation.org/awards/show/opiate-receptors-and-enkephalins/|title=Opiate receptors and enkephalins|publisher=Lasker Foundation|accessdate=8 January 2017}} This discovery demonstrated that opiate drugs exert their effects on the human brain by mimicking endogenous neurotransmitters, the opioid peptides.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zXAhAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT20|title=Anatomy of a Scientific Discovery: The Race to Find the Body's Own Morphine|first=Jeff|last=Goldberg|publisher=Skyhorse Publishing|date=2013|isbn=9781626361935}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/08/world/hans-w-kosterlitz-93-found-clues-in-brain-on-pain-control.html|title=Hans W. Kosterlitz, 93; Found Clues in Brain on Pain Control|newspaper=The New York Times|first=Karen|last=Freeman|date=8 November 1996}}{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_cqZhYd6VIkC&pg=PA4|title=The Opiate Receptors|first=Solomon H.|last=Snyder|chapter=Initial Findings|page=4|editor-first=Gavril|editor-last=Pasternak|publisher=Humana Press|date=1988|isbn=9781607619925}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9cqUAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA213|title=Brain-Robbers: How Alcohol, Cocaine, Nicotine, and Opiates Have Changed Human History|first=Frances R.|last=Frankenburg|publisher=Praeger|date=2014|page=213|isbn=9781440829314}}
Education
Career and research
After his PhD, Hughes did postdoctoral research at Yale Medical School, where he studied the effects of angiotensin on the heart. He took a position as lecturer in Pharmacology at Aberdeen University, where he had a laboratory in Marischal College, and also collaborated in research with Hans Kosterlitz. He went on to become Reader in Pharmacological Biochemistry, and subsequently Professor, at Imperial College London. Later, he became Director of the Parke-Davis Neuroscience Centre at the University of Cambridge, where he is now an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society.
=Discovery of enkephalins=
While working with Kosterlitz at Aberdeen, Hughes helped discover the enkephalin peptides. Kosterlitz had developed assays for responses to opiate drugs, using pieces of guinea pig intestine and mouse vas deferens. Hughes sought to determine whether molecules present in brains could mimic the effects of the drugs. Reflecting in 1995 about that time, Hughes said: "From my personal point of view, I think that the reason I got interested in searching for an endogenous opioid-like substance is that I had been previously involved during my PhD student work in looking at non-adrenergic, noncholinergic innervation of various blood vessels and that's what my PhD thesis was
eventually written on."{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/monoclonalant00tans/page/73|chapter=Endogenous Opiates|editor-first1=E.M.|editor-last1=Tansey|editor-first2=D.A.|editor-last2=Christie|title=Wellcome Witnesses to Twentieth Century Medicine|publisher=Wellcome Trust|date=7 November 1995|page=[https://archive.org/details/monoclonalant00tans/page/73 73]|isbn=9781869835798}} He would bicycle daily to a slaughterhouse, where he would trade bottles of whiskey to the butchers in exchange for pig heads, and he subsequently prepared brain extracts using acetone. After testing many samples in Kosterlitz's assays, the two scientists were able to isolate and identify two peptides, met- and leu-enkephalin, as naturally occurring molecules from the brain, that have activity resembling opioids. Hughes and Kosterlitz first announced their findings at a scientific conference in May 1974, and published the structures of the two enkephalins in 1975.{{Cite journal|title=Identification of two related pentapeptides from the brain with potent opiate agonist activity|first1=J.|last1=Hughes|first2=T.W.|last2=Smith|first3=H.W.|last3=Kosterlitiz|first4=Linda A.|last4=Fothergill|first5=B.A.|last5=Morgan|first6=H.R.|last6=Morris|journal=Nature|volume=258|issue=5536|pages=577–579|date=18 December 1975|doi=10.1038/258577a0|pmid=1207728|bibcode=1975Natur.258..577H|s2cid=95411}} In 1978, they shared the Lasker award with Solomon H. Snyder, and Hughes in particular was credited with predicting the existence of endogenous opioids.
References
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Category:English neuroscientists
Category:English pharmacologists
Category:Alumni of King's College London
Category:Scientists from London
Category:Academics of the University of Aberdeen
Category:Academics of Imperial College London
Category:Fellows of Wolfson College, Cambridge
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society
Category:Recipients of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research