Professional obituary (edited) courtesy of Peter J Barnes, Imperial College
Created by Fiona 7 years ago
Professor
Neil Blair Pride MD, FRCP, FERS: born
Croydon 29th July 1931, died Ealing 12th November 2016.
Neil Pride, Emeritus Professor of
Respiratory Medicine at Imperial College, died on November 12th 2016
aged 85 years. He was a respiratory physician and physiologist, who made enormous
contributions to our understanding of common lung diseases. He had a long
association with Imperial and its medical predecessors.
Born in Croydon to a general practitioner
father, he was educated at Bryanston School, Dorset. He studied preclinical medicine
at Christ’s College, Cambridge University and proceeded to clinical studies at
St Mary’s Hospital Medical School London, qualifying as a doctor in 1956. After
clinical training posts in London (St Mary’s) and Cambridge, in 1962 he went to
work with the famous respiratory physiologist Sol Permutt in the Department of
Medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA. It was here that he
developed physiological research and he and Sol published a landmark paper on
the determinants of maximal expiratory flow from the lung [1]. This was followed by time spent with Julius Comroe, a legendary
respiratory academic, at the Cardiovascular Research Institute in San
Francisco. He returned to London in 1964 to work at an MRC Unit at King’s
College Hospital with Philip Hugh-Jones, beginning his long association with
the MRC. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant at King’s
in 1968.
Later that year he moved to the Royal
Postgraduate Medical School and Hammersmith Hospital as Senior Lecturer in
Medicine, where he established his international reputation as a respiratory
physiologist. He subsequently became Professor of Respiratory Medicine and Head
of the Division of Respiratory Medicine, and remained until his retirement in
1996. During his time at Hammersmith he became a guru of respiratory physiology
and fostered the careers of many academics in respiratory medicine in the UK
and across the world. Neil was responsible for my own entry into respiratory
research, which I was very reluctant to undertake. He was an outstanding mentor
and support during my time as an MRC Research Fellow at Hammersmith. In 1996 he was elected Emeritus Professor of Respiratory
Medicine at Imperial College and continued his physiology research at the
National Heart and Lung Institute at the Royal Brompton, working with
established researchers and students.
Neil Pride made major contributions in the
field of lung mechanics, unravelling the mechanisms of airway narrowing in
common lung diseases, such as asthma and COPD. Neil was one of the first to do
research in COPD, probing its underlying mechanisms and helping us to understand
how treatments work. He was an outstanding
intellect, who knew respiratory physiology better than anyone, as well as a
skilled physician much in demand by his clinical colleagues. But he was also knowledgeable
about many other areas outside his own research field. He was extraordinarily well-read
and had an amazing memory, never seeming to forget anything that he had heard.
He was also a very gifted teacher, who was
able to simplify and communicate complex ideas in lung physiology. He was a doctor
much loved by his patients. For all his brilliance, he was modest and generous,
and an inspiring mentor to young researchers. His writing was as clear as his
talks and he published many very influential papers, reviews, chapters and
books. He co-edited the first large textbook on COPD, now in its second edition
and wrote a book on Lung Function with his long-term colleague Professor Mike
Hughes. His last paper written with Ann Watson on the history of COPD was
published this year [2].
He received many honours, including an
honorary degree from Athens University in 1997, the British Thoracic Society (BTS)
Medal in 2002 and the European Respiratory Society Presidential award in 2003. He
was President of the BTS 1992-1993. He was elected to the Fellowship of the ERS
(FERS) this year, but unfortunately was too ill to attend the ERS International
Congress to receive it.
Neil Pride was one of the most influential
thinkers in academic respiratory medicine in our lifetime and was widely
admired internationally for his insights and thoughtful contributions. He
helped many people in their careers and was a continued source of inspiration
to those who had the great fortune to work with him. He will be greatly missed
by all his friend and colleagues within NHLI and by the international
respiratory community.
He is survived by his wife Roma, his
daughters, Fiona and Catherine, and 2 grandchildren, Theo and Eloise.
Peter
J Barnes FRS, FMedSci, FERS
Head
of Respiratory Medicine, Imperial College London