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Wilhelm Feldberg | |
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 Wilhelm Feldberg in 1990 | |
| Born | 19 November 1900  Hamburg |
| Died | 23 October 1993 (aged 92) London |
| Occupation | Pharmacologist, physiologist |
Wilhelm Siegmund Feldberg CBE FRS [1] (19 November 1900 – 23 October 1993) was a German-British physiologist and biologist.
Feldberg was born in Hamburg to a wealthy middle class Jewish family. He studied medicine at Heidelberg, Munich and Berlin, graduating in 1925. In the same year he moved with his new wife to England and studied first under John Newport Langley at Cambridge and then Henry Dale at Hampstead. In 1927 he returned to the Physiological Institute in Berlin but he was dismissed in 1933 during the Nazi purge of Jewish scientists. With the aid of Archibald Hill's Academic Assistance Council, Feldberg was relocated to Britain's National Institute for Medical Research in 1934–36. Here, he worked with Henry Hallett Dale, providing a significant impetus for Dale's Nobel Prize winning research into chemical neurotransmission. Feldberg was subsequently offered a place in Australia, at the behest of Charles Kellaway, director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. He spent two years (1936–38) in Melbourne, joining Kellaway's snake venom research programme. This work developed into a study of tissue responses to direct and indirect insult, focusing particularly on the liberation of histamine and other endogenous mediators. A finding of lasting pharmacological interest from these studies was the identification and partial isolation of the slow-reacting substance of anaphylaxis. Although Feldberg had earned a fellowship supported by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, in 1938 he was offered a readership in physiology at Cambridge University. He returned to England to take up this post, remaining there throughout World War II until 1949. Feldberg's subsequent appointments include: Head of Physiology and Pharmacology Division, National Institute for Medical Research, London, 1949–65 (Honorary Head of Division, 1965–66); Head, Laboratory of Neuropharmacology, National Institute for Medical Research, 1966–74. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1947 and made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1963.
Wilhelm Feldberg assisted many research workers who came to England as a part of their Commonwealth Medical Fellowship and Wellcome Research Fellowship. Under this Fellowships, Professor PN Saxena [2] and Prof. KP Gupta of the Department of Pharmacology, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University, during the 1970s got many papers published together with Wilhelm Feldberg while their vocation at National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill. [3]
Feldberg's career was ended in 1990 when two animal rights activists gained access to his lab on the pretence of writing a biography and filming an educational video. Their claims were printed in The Independent . An investigation by the Medical Research Council found that some breaches of regulations had occurred. While these may not have been Feldberg's fault, he was deemed responsible and his Home Office Project Licence was revoked. One of the animal rights activists involved, Melody MacDonald, detailed her claims in her 1994 book Caught in the Act: The Feldberg Investigation ( ISBN 1-897766-05-X).
Feldberg became infamous, as MacDonald puts it, for his severe cruelty during animal research experiments. In the year of 1990, an investigation by the animal welfare group Advocates for Animals revealed experiments in which rabbits were regularly burned and operated on without adequate anaesthesia, or even at all, and sometimes even without being covered by a licence.
These revelations came when Feldberg was 89 years old. These experiments took place at the National Institute for Medical Research laboratories, Mill Hill, in London, which relate to the functions and decisions of the Home Department. These experiments took place between 1989 and 1990.
Along with Feldberg's technician Mr. Stean, the Medical Research Council Inquiry found that he caused both unnecessary suffering to animals.
MacDonald reports that Feldberg experimented by pouring various chemicals into the brains of cats while alive and fully conscious. However, as MacDonald and the inquiry found, it was his experiments on rabbits that brought about his downfall and subsequent sacking in 1990. This was just four months after he was awarded the Wellcome Gold Medal in Pharmacology by the British Pharmacological Society. [4] [5] [6]
On 26 May 1994 the book Caught in the Act: The Feldberg Investigation by Melody MacDonald exposed his alleged malpractice to the world. [7]
Sir Henry Hallett Dale was an English pharmacologist and physiologist. For his study of acetylcholine as agent in the chemical transmission of nerve pulses (neurotransmission) he shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Otto Loewi.
The National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), was a medical research institute based in Mill Hill, on the outskirts of north London, England. It was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC);
Hans Walter Kosterlitz FRS was a German-born British biochemist.
Sir John Henry Gaddum was an English pharmacologist who, along with Ulf von Euler, co-discovered the neuropeptide Substance P in 1931. He was a founder member of the British Pharmacological Society and first editor of the British Journal of Pharmacology.
Charles Halliley Kellaway, was an Australian medical researcher and science administrator.
The British Pharmacological Society is the primary UK learned society for pharmacologists, concerned with research into drugs and the ways in which they work. Members work in academia, industry, regulatory agencies, and the health services, and many are medically qualified. The Society covers the whole spectrum of pharmacology, including laboratory, clinical, and toxicological aspects.
Saxena is an Indian surname primarily found in northern and Central India. Kayastha in origin, it derives from the Sanskrit word sakhisena meaning “friend of the army”.
Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College is the constituent medical college of Aligarh Muslim University, located in Aligarh, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
Marthe Louise Vogt was a German scientist recognized as one of the leading neuroscientists of the twentieth century. She is mainly remembered for her important contributions to the understanding of the role of neurotransmitters in the brain, especially epinephrine.
David Anthony Brown, was emeritus Professor of Pharmacology at University College London, having joined the department in April 1987 and served as Head of Department from October 1987 to April 2002.
Syed Ziaur Rahman is a permanent member of 'Board of Trustees' and Chair of the Advisory Council, International Association of Medical Colleges (IAOMC). He also serves as Chairman, Department of Pharmacology, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh, Elected Secretary of IAOMC and Society of Pharmacovigilance, India (SoPI).
Krishan Chandra Singhal is an Indian pharmacologist and has been serving as founder vice chancellor of NIMS University, Jaipur, India.
Prem Narain Saxena was the Founder Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, India. He made several notable contributions to the fields of traditional medicine and neuropharmacology. His demonstration of the wound-healing property of Curcuma longa was a major contributor to India's successful challenge of the US patent on the wound-healing property of Haldi. He was intimately involved in discovery and pre-clinical development of the non-barbiturate hypnotic Methaqualone. His basic studies have helped in understanding the role of various neurotransmitters in thermoregulation. He also standardized the use of Setaria cervi for discovery of new anti-filarial agents.
Graham Leon Collingridge is a British neuroscientist and professor at the University of Toronto and at the University of Bristol. He is also a senior investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.
Mahdi Hasan was an anatomist from Uttar Pradesh, India.
Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital, Bhagalpur is a government recognized medical college and hospital in Bhagalpur, Bihar, India.
Anthony Dickenson, FMedSci is Professor of Neuropharmacology at University College, London.
Wellcome Research Laboratories was a site in Beckenham, south-east London, that was a main research centre for pharmaceuticals. Until 1965, this laboratory site was situated in Kent.
The Department of Pharmacology at the University College London, the first of its kind in England, was founded in 1905 and remained in existence until 2007.
Sussan Nourshargh is a British immunologist, pharmacologist, and professor of microvascular pharmacology and immunopharmacology. She founded the Centre for Microvascular research at Queen Mary University.
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