About
Tony Sampson is an emeritus professor in clinical pharmacology based in the Faculty of Medicine since 1995. His research career focused on the role of leukotrienes and allied lipid mediators in asthma and inflammatory diseases of the skin and GI tract, publishing 120 papers and supervising 20 doctoral students. He was director and deputy director of the Allergy & Inflammation Research group in 1999-2005. He led the clinical pharmacology team delivering teaching 1200 medical students from 2006 and was director of undergraduate medicine programmes from 2018-2021. He is co-author of three editions of Medical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (Elsevier). Professor Sampson retired in 2023.
Research
Research interests
- Characterisation of leukotriene pathway expression and activity in airway disease.
- Aspirin-exacerbated respiratory disease (AERD).
- Role of leukotrienes in Barrett’s disease and oesophageal adenocarcinoma.
- Pro-resolving lipid mediators as smooth muscle relaxants.
- Regulation of the 5-lipoxygenase pathway in lung and blood cells.
Current research
Professor Sampson retired in 2023 and currently has no active research.
Research projects
Completed projects
Publications
Teaching
From 2006 to 2022 Tony Sampson led the Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics group delivering pharmacology teaching to over students in all years of the Bachelor of Medicine (BM) programme. He introduced and managed the national Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA) at Southampton. He was the year leader and assessments lead of Year 1 of the BM5/6/EU programme from 2011 to 2018 and the Director of Undergraduate Programmes from 2018 to 2021. He won the Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Award in 2011 and voted Outstanding Faculty Lecturer’ in 2013 and 2014. Professor Sampson was the education lead for the School of Clinical & Experimental Sciences and an external examiner at Keele, Durham, Portsmouth and Kuala Lumpur. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an elected Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society. He co-wrote with Dr Derek Waller three editions of Medical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (Elsevier Ltd., 2014, 2018), the best-selling medical pharmacology textbook in UK medical schools, with significant sales in the USA, Australia and Europe.
Biography
Tony Sampson’s first degree was in Natural Sciences at St John’s College, Cambridge (MA 1987) with a PhD in Pharmacology from King's College London (1989). After two years in respiratory research at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, in 1985 joined the pharmacology department at The Royal College of Surgeons of England, a group known internationally for lipid mediator research and the Nobel-winning discovery of the mechanism of action of aspirin. As the RCSE Newman Foundation Lecturer in 1990-95 he collaborated with the Thoracic Unit at King's College School of Medicine to research the role of leukotrienes as mediators of respiratory diseases including asthma, cystic fibrosis, bronchiolitis and chronic lung disease of infancy, and supported clinical trials of the novel class of leukotriene modifier drugs.
In 1995, he relocated to the Immunopharmacology Group in Southampton led by MRC Clinical Professor Stephen Holgate. His research team focused on the role of leukotrienes and related mediators in asthma, allergy and aspirin intolerance, with studies also in dermatological, gastrointestinal and neurological disorders. He gained more than £6M in charitable, research council and commercial funding from the National Asthma Campaign, Wellcome Trust, Merck & Co and Ono Pharmaceuticals, generating over 120 research papers, reviews, editorials and book chapters. Prof Sampson supervised 20 doctoral/PG and 30 undergraduate research students and presented over 40 invited and plenary seminars on leukotrienes and anti-leukotriene drugs at conferences in 25 countries. He was a consultant member of the international respiratory advisory (AIR) board of Merck & Co during the period that its leukotriene modifier drug for asthma management became a global market leader with annual sales over $4 billion.
After three years as deputy director of the Respiratory Cell & Molecular Biology (RCMB) group, Tony Sampson was the director of the Allergy & Inflammation Research (AIR) division in 2002-05, supporting its merger into the School of Clinical & Experimental Sciences (CES) in refurbished laboratories funded by a SRIF grant of £10 million from the Wellcome Trust. Professor Sampson was a trustee of the Asthma, Allergy & Inflammation Research (AAIR) charity from 2006 to 2016 and an editorial board member of the British Journal of Pharmacology, Clinical & Experimental Allergy and PLOSOne. He reviewed grants for the MRC College of Experts and manuscript submissions to numerous international journals.