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UCL SCHOOL OF PHARMACY
PROFESSOR FRANK FISH
MEMORIAL AWARD LECTURE
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Wednesday 9 October 2013
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Biologically active compounds from plants:
40 years of searching for a scientific pot of gold
Speaker:
Professor A. Douglas Kinghorn
Professor and Jack L. Beal Chair
College of Pharmacy, The Ohio State University
Professor Frank Fish Memorial Award Lecture
Biologically active
compounds from plants:
40 years of searching for
a scientific pot of gold
Over the last 40 years, there has been
a steady rate of introduction of new
approved single chemical entity drugs
obtained from an ever-widening array
of terrestrial and marine organisms.
Important new agents derived from higher
plants have included artemether, galanthamine,
paclitaxel, and irinotecan.
In addition, there has been a greatly increased
availability of botanical dietary supplements in the
United States since the passage of the Dietary
Supplement Health and Education Act in 1994,
and, in the last few years, two new “botanical
drugs” were approved by the U.S. FDA, namely,
sinecatechins and crofelemer.
Accordingly, there is ample rationale for the
search for additional lead compounds from plant
sources. As a result of several collaborative
funded projects, a number of promising plant
secondary metabolites of new structure have
been isolated and characterized in the lecturer’s
laboratory as lead compounds, including
abrusoside A, hernandulcin, 2-methoxy-1,3,6trihydroxyanthraquinone, pentalinonsterol,
pervilleine A, and silvestrol, and several known
substances have been found to have new types
of biological activity, such as betulinic acid and
trans-resveratrol.
The further development of some of these agents
will be described in this lecture. A central theme
of which will be the role of mentoring in career
development, as exemplified by the key role that
Professor Fish played for Professor Kinghorn.
Professor Frank Fish, OBE
Professor A. Douglas Kinghorn
Professor and Jack L. Beal Chair
College of Pharmacy,
The Ohio State University
Professor A. Douglas Kinghorn
has been Professor and the Jack
L. Beal Chair in Natural Products
Chemistry and Pharmacognosy
at the College of Pharmacy, The
Ohio State University, since 2004.
His research interests are the
discovery of biologically active
natural products from higher plants.
A fellow of five scientific and
professional societies, including
the UCL School of Pharmacy,
Professor Kinghorn has received
degrees from the universities
of Bradford (B.Pharm 1969),
Strathclyde (MSc Forensic
Science 1970) and the UCL
School of Pharmacy (PhD in
Pharmacognosy 1975, DSc 1990).
Professor Kinghorn has authored
or co-authored over 500 peerreviewed research articles, review
articles and book chapters. Since
1994 he has been Editor-in-Chief
of the Journal of Natural Products
and from 2008 has been Series
Editor-in-Chief of the book series
Progress in the Chemistry of
Organic Natural Products.
Frank Fish was born 20 April in 1924, the son of a
grocer and one of eight children.
He was awarded his BPharm at the University
of London in 1946. In 1949 he was appointed
assistant lecturer in pharmacognosy at the
department of pharmacy at Glasgow University,
where he wrote his PhD on digitalis in 1955.
A much admired lecturer he later held a personal
professorship and then became Dean of the
School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the
University of Strathclyde.
From early in his career he was called regularly
as an expert witness at trials. He had a wide
knowledge and understanding of the power of
drugs derived from plants and this, in turn,
led to Professor Fish furthering his interest in
forensic science.
In 1966 he initiated an MSc course in forensic
science at the University of Strathclyde – then
the only post-graduate course in the UK. It is
still regarded as one of the leading programmes
in forensic science and remains a worthy
memorial to Frank’s vision and scholarship
while in Glasgow. In 1978 he was offered the
post of Dean of the School of Pharmacy at the
University of London. He proved an energetic
and innovative Dean.
He also served on many influential committees,
including the Safety of Medicines, the DHSS
Standing Pharmaceutical Advisory Committee,
the UGC Panel on Studies Allied to Medicine and
the University of London Senate (1981–88).
In recognition of outstanding service Professor
Fish was awarded the Charter Gold Medal by
the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in 1987, the
Harrison Memorial Medal in 1982, and made
an OBE in 1989. He was made an Honorary
Fellow of the School of Pharmacy in 1992 and an
Emeritus Professor in 1988.
Frank died on April 26, 2011. He is remembered
as a dedicated and professional academic with
a keen interest in research and furthering the
standard of pharmacological teaching.