This is an online event open to all members of the RSC. It will be held on the RSC's Zoom platform. Please register in good itme to ensure your place.
By developing Inderal, the first successful beta-blocker for the treatment of heart disease, ICI helped to make to make receptor theory a reality. Later, their anti-cancer drug Nolvadex (tamoxifen) became a research tool for investigating the newly discovered oestrogen receptor. By bridging the gap between theory and practice, these drugs not only improved the outlook for sufferers, but by a process that has been referred to as the ‘molecularisation of disease’, transformed medicine in the second half of the twentieth century. Inderal and Nolvadex were attributable to ICI’s ability to attract outstanding scientists like James (later Sir James) Black, build research networks with external laboratories such as that of Craig Jordan at Leeds, and – importantly – to the accumulation of ICI’s in-house scientific and technical expertise. However, in her talk Viviane will argue that such factors created a reliance on particular individuals which locked ICI into avenues for research that could be described (with the benefit of hindsight) as less fruitful, both scientifically and commercially.
By developing Inderal, the first successful beta-blocker for the treatment of heart disease, ICI helped to make to make receptor theory a reality. Later, their anti-cancer drug Nolvadex (tamoxifen) became a research tool for investigating the newly discovered oestrogen receptor. By bridging the gap between theory and practice, these drugs not only improved the outlook for sufferers, but by a process that has been referred to as the ‘molecularisation of disease’, transformed medicine in the second half of the twentieth century. Inderal and Nolvadex were attributable to ICI’s ability to attract outstanding scientists like James (later Sir James) Black, build research networks with external laboratories such as that of Craig Jordan at Leeds, and – importantly – to the accumulation of ICI’s in-house scientific and technical expertise. However, in her talk Viviane will argue that such factors created a reliance on particular individuals which locked ICI into avenues for research that could be described (with the benefit of hindsight) as less fruitful, both scientifically and commercially.
