Arthur Weston

Attended Hymers College:

1955 - 1962

What makes this nominee inspiring? 

Arthur is a Researcher and Educationalist in Physiology and Pharmacology. He won an East Riding Scholarship to Hymers in 1955 and entered the Victoria of Manchester in 1962, graduating with a 'First' in Pharmacology in 1966. 

As an undergraduate, Arthur was strongly influenced by Edith Bülbring's work on mammalian smooth muscle in Oxford and this formed the basis of his postgraduate degrees (MSc, 1968; Wild Prize), PhD (1970, Geigy Prize), DSc, (1990).   Made Lecturer in Pharmacology in Manchester in 1970. he was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (University of Marburg, 1974) and a Senior Humboldt Fellowship (University of Heidelberg, 1985) to research into the physiology and pharmacology of vascular smooth muscle.  He continued this work as a Royal Society-funded Visiting Professor in the University of Kyushu (1988).  Returning to Manchester, he was made Leech Professor of Pharmacology (1989-2011) and was elected to a Visiting Fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford (2011-2012).  

In his research work, Arthur is best known for discovering a new class of drug (potassium channel openers) and for his studies on the signalling role of potassium ions in regulating mammalian blood vessel diameter and hence blood pressure.  These studies also led to the realisation that blood-vessel endothelial cells produced a vasodilator factor that he named endothelium-derived hyperpolarising factor (EDHF).  

Arthur was awarded his DSc (Manchester, 1990), elected Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci, 2001), Honorary Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society (HonBPhS, 2008) and Fellow of the Finnish Pharmacological Society (2008).  He received the Gaddum Medal from the British Pharmacological Society (2008) and the Rodolfo Paoletti Medal from the Federation of European Pharmacological Society (2014). 

 He was made Professor Emeritus by the University of Manchester in 2011.