VANE, JOHN ROBERT

born March 29, 1927, Tardebigg, Worcestershire, Eng. English biochemist, corecipient with Sune K. Bergstrm and Bengt Ingemar Samuelsson of Sweden (qq.v.) of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Vane graduated from the University of Birmingham and earned a doctorate at the University of Oxford in 1953. He spent two years on the faculty of Yale University before returning to England to join the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences of the University of London. He became research director of the Wellcome Research Laboratories, Beckenham, Kent, in 1973. Vane and his two colleagues received the Nobel Prize for their isolation, identification, and analysis of prostaglandins, biochemical compounds that influence blood pressure, body temperature, allergic reactions, and other physiological phenomena in mammals. In demonstrating that aspirin inhibits the formation of prostaglandins associated with pain, fever, and inflammation, Vane provided a physiological rationale for the effectiveness of the world's most widely used drug. In 1986 Vane founded the William Harvey Research Institute, which funded cardiovascular research. He was knighted in 1984.