Miles Vaughan Williams

Miles Vaughan Williams (8 August 1918 – 31 August 2016) was a British cardiac pharmacologist and academic. He is best known for the Vaughan Williams classification of antidysrhythmic drugs.[1] From 1955 to 1985, he was a Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford, and its Tutor in medicine.[2]

Life

He was born in Bangalore to Stella and Arthur Vaughan Williams.[3] His father, an engineer working on the railways of India, was a cousin of the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.[4] Schooling was at Wellington college, and university at Wadham College, where he studied philosophy and classics (Greats). He became an ambulance officer during the second world war. Upon his return to Oxford, he switched from Greats to Medicine.

In 1956 he married Marie, with whom he had three children.[3]

Scientific work

He is best known for his work on beta-adrenoceptor antagonists (better known as beta blocker), and for the development of the first widely used classification system for antidysrhythmic drugs, commonly known as the Vaughan Williams classification. This classification system is still widely taught.[5] His work has been recognized through an honorary fellowship of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology and an honorary doctorate from the Sorbonne.[3]

Hertford College

Miles was the first full science fellow of Hertford College, Oxford, appointed in 1955. Apart from teaching, his major contribution to the college included improvements to the fabric of the building, and the design of the Holywell Quadrangle.[1][6] He used funding from pharmaceutical companies to provide travel funds for medical students at the college.

Selected publications
  • A classification of antiarrhythmic actions reassessed after a decade of new drugs (1984)[7]
  • The multiple-modes of action of propafenone (1984)[8]
  • Effects of selective alpha-1-adrenoceptor,alpha-2-adrenoceptor,beta-1-adrenoceptor and beta-2-adrenoceptor stimulation on potentials and contractions in the rabbit heart (1984)[9]
  • Effects on rabbit nodal, atrial, ventricular and purkinje-cell potentials of a new antiarrhythmic drug, cibenzoline, which protects against action-potential shortening in hypoxia (1982)[10]

Fitness
  • You Don't Need a Gym (2010)[11]

References
  1. "Miles Vaughan Williams, medical don who did vital work on arrhythmias – obituary". The Telegraph. 16 October 2016. Retrieved 18 October 2016.
  2. "Miles Vaughan Williams, 1918-2016". Hertford College. University of Oxford. Retrieved 25 October 2016.
  3. Wilkinson, Armelle (13 December 2016). "Miles Vaughan Williams obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
  4. "Miles Vaughan Williams". The Times. 14 November 2016. Retrieved 10 December 2016.
  5. Rang, Humphrey P.; et al. (2011). "Antidysrhythmic drugs". Rang & Dale's pharmacology (7th ed.). Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone. pp. 254–258. ISBN 978-0702034718.
  6. Keown, Callum (22 September 2016). "Obituary: Pharmacologist Miles Vaughan Williams who oversaw the redevelopment of Hertford College". Oxford Mail. Retrieved 18 October 2016.
  7. Vaughan Williams, EM (April 1984). "A classification of antiarrhythmic actions reassessed after a decade of new drugs". Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. 24 (4): 129–47. doi:10.1002/j.1552-4604.1984.tb01822.x. PMID 6144698.
  8. Dukes, ID; Vaughan Williams, EM (February 1984). "The multiple modes of action of propafenone". European Heart Journal. 5 (2): 115–25. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.eurheartj.a061621. PMID 6144546.
  9. Dukes, ID; Vaughan Williams, EM (October 1984). "Effects of selective alpha 1-, alpha 2-, beta 1-and beta 2-adrenoceptor stimulation on potentials and contractions in the rabbit heart". The Journal of Physiology. 355: 523–46. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1984.sp015436. PMC 1193508. PMID 6149314.
  10. Millar, JS; Vaughan Williams, EM (March 1982). "Effects on rabbit nodal, atrial, ventricular and Purkinje cell potentials of a new antiarrhythmic drug, cibenzoline, which protects against action potential shortening in hypoxia". British Journal of Pharmacology. 75 (3): 469–78. doi:10.1111/j.1476-5381.1982.tb09163.x. PMC 2071575. PMID 7066601.
  11. Vaughan Williams, Miles (2010). You don't need a gym. Oxford: Vaughan Williams. ISBN 978-0956371508.


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