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Paul Adriaan Jan, Baron Janssen (born on 12 September 1926 in Turnhout, Belgium - 11 November 2003 in Rome, Italy) was the founder of Janssen Pharmaceutica, a pharmaceutical company with over 20,000 employees[1]. He achieved a postdoctorate in Pharmacology and is one of Belgium's most loved figures, even posthumously.
Paul Janssen was the son of Constant Janssen and Margriet Fleerackers. On 16 April 1957, he married Dora Arts. Paul Janssen died in Rome, Italy in 2003, while attending the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, of which he was a member since 1990[2]. He was survived by his widow, Dora Arts Janssen, two sons, three daughters and 13 grandchildren.
In 2005 he finished as runner up, after Father Damien, in the poll for The Greatest Belgian organised by the regional Flemish television.
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Education
He attended secondary school at the Jesuit St-Josef College in Turnhout, after which he decided to follow in his father's footsteps and become a physician. During the second world war, Janssen studied physics, biology, and chemistry at the Facultés universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix (FUNDP) in Namur. He then studied medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven and the University of Ghent. In 1951 Janssen graduated "magna cum laude" in medicine from the University of Ghent.
Career
During his military service, he could also work at the University of Cologne in Germany at the Institute of Pharmacology of J. Schuller, where he worked until 1952. After he returned to Belgium he worked part-time at the Institute of Pharmacology and Therapeutics (University of Ghent) of Professor Corneille Heymans, who had won the Nobel prize for medicine in 1938. Janssen founded his own research laboratory in 1953, with a loan of 50,000 Belgian francs from his father. In 1953 he also discovered his first drug ambucetamide, an antispasmodic found to be particularly effective for the relief of menstrual pain[3].
In 1956, Janssen received his teaching certificate for higher education in pharmacology (Venia legendi) with a thesis on Compounds of the R 79 type. He then left the university and in 1956 established the company which would become Janssen Pharmaceutica. On 11 February 1958 he made haloperidol a major breakthrough in the treatment of schizophrenia[4]. Paul Janssen and his team developed the fentanyl family of drugs, and many other potent analgesics, such as droperidol and etomidate which made a significant contribution to anesthesiology[5]. One of the drugs he developed for the treatment of diarrhea, Diphenoxylate (Lomotil)®, even made it into space and was used during the Apollo program[6][7]. In 1985, his company was the first Western pharmaceutical company to set up a pharmaceutical factory in the People's Republic of China (Xi'an)[8]. In 1995 he founded the Center for Molecular Design, together with Paul Lewi, where he and his team used a supercomputer to search for candidate molecules to find a treatment for AIDS[9][10]
Janssen and the scientists at Janssen Pharmaceutica discovered more than 80 new medicines. Four (five overall) of his medicines are on the WHO list of essential medicines; this is an absolute world record. The majority of the drugs he and his teams developed were for human medicine and are being used to treat infestations by fungi and worms, mental illnesses, cardiovascular diseases, allergies, and gastrointestinal disorders.
For his contributions to medicine Janssen was honored on several occasions and he received more than 80 medical prizes and 22 honorary doctorates. In 1990 Janssen was knighted by Albert II of Belgium and became a Baron.
Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research
The "Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research" was founded by Johnson & Johnson in 2005 to honor the memory of Dr. Paul Janssen. The Award, which is given every two years, serves to promote, recognize and reward passion and creativity in biomedical research and to underline Johnson & Johnson's commitment to scientific excellence in the advance of healthcare knowledge while fulfilling its responsibility in the community.
- In September 2006, Craig C. Mello, a professor of Molecular Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, was named the inaugural recipient of the Award. Mello was selected for his role in the discovery of RNA interference (RNAi) and the elucidation of its biological functions[11]
- In May 2008, Marc Feldmann and Sir Ravinder N. Maini of The Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, Imperial College London were named the winners of the 2008 Award for their role in the discovery of tumor necrosis factor-alpha, or TNF-alpha, as an effective therapeutic target for rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases[12]
References
- ^ Paul Lewi, Obituary of Dr Paul Janssen (1926–2003), Drug Discovery Today, Volume 9, Issue 10, 15 May 2004, Pages 432-433
- ^ Thomas A Ban, Paul Adriaan Jan Janssen, 1926–2003, Neuropsychopharmacology (2004) 29, 1579–1580
- ^ I. Oransky, Paul Janssen, The Lancet, Volume 363, Issue 9404, Pages 251-251
- ^ B. Granger, S. Albu, The Haloperidol Story, Annals of Clinical Psychiatry (after Jan 1, 2004), Volume 17, Number 3, Number 3/July-September 2005 , pp. 137-140(4)
- ^ Theodore H. Stanley, MD, Talmage D. Egan, MD, and Hugo Van Aken, MD, A Tribute to Dr. Paul A. J. Janssen: Entrepreneur Extraordinaire, Innovative Scientist, and Significant Contributor to Anesthesiology, Anesth Analg 2008; 106:451-462
- ^ W. Royce Hawkins, M.D., John F. Zieglschmid, M.D., Clinical aspects of crew health
- ^ Apollo Medical Kits
- ^ Magiels G, Paul Janssen. Pionier in farma en in China, Houtekiet, 2005
- ^ Yven Van Herrewege, Guido Vanham, Jo Michiels, Katrien Fransen, Luc Kestens, Koen Andries, Paul Janssen, and Paul Lewi, A Series of Diaryltriazines and Diarylpyrimidines Are Highly Potent Nonnucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors with Possible Applications as Microbicides, Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2004 October; 48(10): 3684–3689
- ^ New AIDS Drug Discoveries To Battle Drug-Resistant HIV Strains
- ^ Craig Mello named winner of The Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research
- ^ Marc Feldmann and Sir Ravinder Maini win Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research
Further reading
- Lewi, Paul J., Successful Pharmaceutical Discovery: Paul Janssen's Concept of Drug Research, R&D Management, Vol. 37, Issue 4, pp. 355-362, September 2007.
- van Gestel S, Schuermans V, Thirty-three years of drug discovery and research with Dr. Paul Janssen, Drug Development Research, Volume 8, Issue 1-4 , pp. 1-13.
- In memory of Dr. Paul Janssen
- Rory Watson, Paul Janssen, BMJ 2003;327;1290
- 1996 Australia Prize
See also
- Gedeon Richter Ltd.
- Gairdner Foundation International Award
- Tibotec
- Rega Institute for Medical Research
External links
- Dr Paul Janssen
- Paul Adriaan Jan Janssen, 1926-2003
- Paul Janssen (Obituary)
- Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Janssen, Dr. Paul Adriaan Jan |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Dr. Paul |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Scientist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 12 September 1926 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Turnhout, Belgium |
| DATE OF DEATH | 11 November 2003 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Rome, Italy |
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 28 June 2008, at 23:30.
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