A Short History of the Drug Receptor Concept

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

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2. Introduction

   • Cay-Rüdiger Prüll, Andreas-Holger Maehle, Robert Francis Halliwell

   Pages 1-15

3. Paul Ehrlich and his Receptor Concept

   • Cay-Rüdiger Prüll, Andreas-Holger Maehle, Robert Francis Halliwell

   Pages 16-40

4. The Development of the Concept of Drug Receptors in the Physiological Research of John Newport Langley

   • Cay-Rüdiger Prüll, Andreas-Holger Maehle, Robert Francis Halliwell

   Pages 41-63

5. Receptors and Scientific Pharmacology I: Critics of the Receptor Idea and Alternative Theories of Drug Action, c. 1905–35

   • Cay-Rüdiger Prüll, Andreas-Holger Maehle, Robert Francis Halliwell

   Pages 64-92

6. Receptors and Scientific Pharmacology II: Critics of the Receptor Idea and Alternative Research Strands: the Transmitter Theory, c. 1905–35

   • Cay-Rüdiger Prüll, Andreas-Holger Maehle, Robert Francis Halliwell

   Pages 93-106

7. Quantitative Arguments for the Existence of Drug Receptors and the Development of the Receptor Occupancy Theory, c. 1910–60

   • Cay-Rüdiger Prüll, Andreas-Holger Maehle, Robert Francis Halliwell

   Pages 107-124

8. The Dual Adrenalin Receptor Theory of Raymond P. Ahlquist (1914–83) and its Application in Drug Development between 1950 and 1970

   • Cay-Rüdiger Prüll, Andreas-Holger Maehle, Robert Francis Halliwell

   Pages 125-145

9. The Emergence of Molecular Pharmacology

   • Cay-Rüdiger Prüll, Andreas-Holger Maehle, Robert Francis Halliwell

   Pages 146-157

10. Conclusions

    • Cay-Rüdiger Prüll, Andreas-Holger Maehle, Robert Francis Halliwell

    Pages 158-165

11. Back Matter

    Pages 166-239

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The concept of specific receptors for drugs, hormones and transmitters lies at the very heart of biomedicine. This book is the first to consider the idea from its 19th century origins in the work of John Newport Langley and Paul Ehrlich, to its development of during the 20th century and its current impact on drug discovery in the 21st century.

• biomedicine
• development
• drugs
• receptor
• research
• work

• Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany

  Cay-Rüdiger Prüll

• Durham University, UK

  Andreas-Holger Maehle

• University of the Pacific, USA

  Robert Francis Halliwell

CAY-RÜDIGER PRÜLL is Senior Lecturer in the History of Medicine at the University of Freiburg, Germany. Currently he is supervising projects on the history of pharmacology and on the history of German military medicine between 1914 and 1945. Between 2000 and 2003 he was Senior Research Associate at the University of Durham, UK, working on a project on the impact of the receptor concept on modern pharmacology, which was sponsored by the Wellcome Trust. He has published extensively on the history of medicine, pharmacology and pathology including Traditions in Pathology in Western Europe Theories, Institutions and their Cultural Setting.
ANDREAS-HOLGER MAEHLE is Professor of the History of Medicine and Medical Ethics at Durham University, UK, where he directs the Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease. He previously held a lectureship at the University of Göttingen, Germany, and was a research fellow at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London. He has published widely on the history of medicine and pharmacology, including Drugs on Trial: Experimental Pharmacology and Therapeutic Innovation in the Eighteenth Century.

ROBERT F. HALLIWELL is Professor of Neuropharmacology at the Thomas J Long School of Pharmacy, University of the Pacific, in California. He previously held a lectureship in neuroscience at the University of Durham, UK and a research fellowship at the University of California, Irvine. His work focuses on the pharmacological properties of nerve cell receptors and ion channels.

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