After graduating he joined the Physiology department at University College as an Assistant Lecturer. He later took a lecturer position at the University of Malaya.[5][6] Black had decided against a career as a medical practitioner as he objected to what he perceived as the insensitive treatment of patients at the time.[6]
Career
After graduation, Black took a teaching job in Singapore for three years. He moved to London in 1950.[7] Later in 1950, he returned to Scotland. He joined the University of Glasgow (Veterinarian School). There that he became interesteed in how adrenaline affects the humanheart. He was mainly interesting in how it affected people with angina.[8] He found the effects of adrenaline did not help. He joined ICI Pharmaceuticals in 1958. He worked with the company until 1964. During this time, he created propranolol, which became the world's best-selling drug.[8] While at ICI, Black developed a new way of doing research. Before this, drug molecules would be created and then tested to find in what ways the molecules could be used as medicine. Black chose to pick a medical use and then try to create the molecules for that medicine.[6] The discovery of propranolol was said to be the greatest discovery in the treatment of heart disease since the discovery of digitalis.[8]
At the same time, Black was trying to find a treatment for stomach ulcers. ICI did not wish to do this so Black stopped working for them in 1964. He joined Smith, Kline and French. He worked for them for nine years until 1973.[9] While there, Black developed his second major drug, cimetidine. It was first sold under the brand name Tagamet in 1975. Tagamet soon outsold propranolol to become the world's largest-selling prescription drug.[8]
Black helped increase basic scientific and clinical knowledge in cardiology. His creation of propranolol is thought to be one of the most important contributions to clinical medicine and pharmacology of the 20th century.[10][11] Propranolol has helped millions of people.[6]
.jpg)
