Ariens Award
The Ariëns lecture is an annual event at the FIGON Dutch Medicine days, organized by the Dutch Pharmacological Society since 1984. This lecture is named after the famous Dutch pharmacologist Prof. Dr. E.J. Ariëns (1918-2002), one of the founding fathers of the receptor theory. Herewith the Dutch Pharmacological Society recognizes the importance of the work of Professor Ariëns as the founder of pharmacology in the Netherlands and the importance of pharmacology as an essential component in the development of new medicines. After the lecture, the Ariëns price is handed over to the lecturer to commemorate the event. Ariëns lecturers are eminent pharmacologists with a strong international orientation and a focus on molecular pharmacology, in the spirit of the legacy of Prof. Ariëns. Candidates can be nominated by the members of the Dutch Pharmacological Society and are evaluated by the selection committee of our Society. Selection criteria are:
- the quantity and the scientific quality of the candidate’s work
- the focus on molecular interactions
- international orientation of the candidate
Ariens award 2023
In 2023, the laureate was Prof. dr. Tetsuya Terasaki, Research Director of Bioanalytics, School of Pharmacy, University of Eastern Finland (UEF) and Professor Emeritus of Tohoku University (TU), Japan.He received a Ph.D. degree in Biopharmacy from University of Tokyo in 1982 and was appointed Professor of TU in 1996 and Distinguished Professor of TU in 2008 and retired from TU in 2020, and moved to UEF to continue his research in Finland.
He has been serving as an editor of Journal of Pharmaceutical Science since 2008. He published over 330 research articles, 30 review articles and book chapters. He received the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon, bestowed by the Government of Japan in 2013. He was selected as a “Highly Cited Researcher 2016” in Pharmacology & Toxicology by Clarivate Analytics. His h-index is 76. One of key aspects of his research style is that he has focused on developing new methodology to address difficult and challenging questions. A major focus of his research has been to clarify transport function of drugs and endogenous compounds in the CNS barriers including ocular barriers. In 2008, he developed a novel methodology to quantify membrane proteins based on an in silico peptide selection criteria for the target proteomics. He has opened a new research field of pharmacoproteomics defined by quantitative proteomics-based pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, toxicokinetics, clinical pharmacology and therapeutics, which is expected to play an important role in the progress of the pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences in the next decade.
Ariens award 2022
In 2022, the laureate was Prof. dr. Christine Mummery. She is Professor of Developmental Biology and heads the iPSC&OoC Hotel facility in the LUMC. She trained in Biophysics from the University of London and since 2015, has been guest professor at the University of Twente.
Her research concerns modelling cardiovascular diseases using stem cells from patients and developing organ-on-chip models of multiple organs for safety pharmacology and potential disease and drug targets. She leads a multimillion NWO Gravity grant for this purpose and holds European Research Council Advanced and Proof-of- Concept grants. She co-founded the European Organ on Chip Society and the Netherlands Human Disease Modelling Technology organization (hDMT.technology). Most recently, she became part of the Novo Nordisk Foundation project reNEW on human stem cells which links nodes in the LUMC, Copenhagen and Melbourne to advance regenerative medicine and drug discovery. She is also a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Science (KNAW) and past president of the International Society of Stem Cell research (ISSCR). She was founding editor of the ISSCR journal Stem Cell Reports. She is on several scientific advisory boards including the Hubrecht Institute, Gurdon Institute, Allen Institute, Mogrify and Sartorius Gmbh.
Ariens award 2021
In 2021, the laureate was Prof. dr. Margareta Hammarlund-Udenaes. She is a Professor of Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics at Uppsala University, Sweden, since 1999. Her Ariens lecture was entitled: “From ligand-receptor interactions to whole-body pharmacokinetics – and back. On tissue uptake and the importance of unbound drug concentrations”.
Margareta has supervised 19 PhD’s and published more than 130 original articles, and was Editor of the book Drug Delivery to the Brain – Principles, Methodology and Applications (Springer, 2014; 2 nd Ed 2021). She was the Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy in Uppsala 2017-2020. She became a Fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists in 2005 and an Honorary Member of the Swedish Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2016. She is a former Associate Editor of Pharmaceutical Research, former EAB member of the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and presently an EAB member of Fluids and Barrier of the CNS. She was the Chair of the Gordon Conference on Barriers of the CNS in 2014 and of the 8 th International Symposium on Microdialysis in 2016, and is co-organizing the 14 th Cerebrovascular Biology meeting to be held in Uppsala 2023. Main scientific interest is drug delivery to the brain, based on PK-PD principles with a translational perspective. This is a critical area for pharmaceutical research, because of the severe limitations imposed on the development of drugs for the CNS by the blood-brain barrier (BBB). The work to date has revealed the basic relationships of BBB function and brain physiology regarding the transport of exogenous compounds and has provided a new understanding of how drugs are handled by the BBB and the brain. Disease influence and the role of nanodelivery on BBB transport of drugs and peptides are also investigated.
Ariens award 2020
In 2020, the laureate was Prof. dr. Malcolm Rowland. This Ariens lecture was entitled: “Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic modelling”.
Malcolm Rowland is member and former director (1996-2000) of the Centre for Applied Pharmacokinetic Research, University of Manchester, U.K, and Adjunct Professor, Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California San Francisco (UCSF). He was President, EUFEPS (European Federation for Pharmaceutical Sciences,1996-2000); and a Vicepresident FIP (International Pharmaceutical Federation, 2001- 2009). Dr. Rowland has been a frontrunner in basic and theoretical aspects of pharmacokinetics, especially physiologic pharmacokinetics. His main research interest is physiologically based pharmacokinetics and its application to drug discovery, development and use. He is also strongly associated with clearance concepts in pharmacokinetics. Author of over 300 scientific articles, and co-author, with Dr. TN Tozer, of the textbooks: Clinical Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics: Concepts and Applications, and Essentials of Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics. He served as an editor of Journal of Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics (1973-2007), and since 1977 has organised regular residential workshops in pharmacokinetics. He has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees from the Universities of Athens (Greece), Poitiers (France), and Uppsala (Sweden), and Honorary Membership, Royal College of Physicians (London). Despite his retirement, he is still active in the field and a true inspiring mentor to all his (former) students and colleagues. Analogous to professor Ariens, Malcolm Rowland combines basic pharmacological science with clinical concepts.
Ariens award 2019
In 2019, the laureate was Dr. Steven Hill. This Ariens lecture was entitled: “Fluorescent ligand and NanoBRET approaches to study target engagement and ligand-binding kinetics at GPCRs and RTKs”.
Professor Steve Hill is Professor of Molecular Pharmacology in the School of Life Sciences, University of Nottingham. He is also Co-Director of the new University of Birmingham and University of Nottingham Centre of Membrane Proteins and Receptors (COMPARE] and President of the British Pharmacological Society. Steve obtained his first degree in pharmacology at the University of Bristol and his PhD (pharmacology) at the University of Cambridge. His research has concentrated mainly on the molecular pharmacology of cell surface receptors (particularly G protein-coupled receptors [GPCRs] but more recently receptor tyrosine kinases). Currently, the emphasis of his work is on the study of ligand-receptor interactions in membrane microdomains of single living cells using a variety of fluorescent imaging techniques including fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, confocal imaging and resonance energy transfer techniques. In particular, he is interested in the cooperative interactions (positive and negative) between the protomers of receptor dimers, the influence of small molecule allosteric regulators on orthosteric ligand binding and signalling and the potential for protein-protein interactions between receptors and associated signalling proteins to convey signalling bias. He joined the University of Nottingham in 1981 and was subsequently promoted to Reader (1989) and Professor of Molecular Pharmacology (1995). In 1997, he became Director of the Institute of Cell Signalling and in 2008 Head of the School of Biomedical Sciences (until 2013). He was a founding director of the University of Nottingham spin-out company CellAura Technologies Ltd that provided fluorescent ligands to the scientific community until it was acquired by HelloBio in 2014.
His work is currently funded by BBSRC, MRC and the EU ITN ONCORNET. Steve is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Western Australia. He was recently awarded the 2018 Vice Chancellor’s Medal from the University of Nottingham.
Below you will find a link to the list of previous Ariens Awards winners.