The lasting legacy of the pharmacologist Sir John Vane, who has died aged 77, will be the millions of lives saved each year by the use of daily low-dose aspirin to prevent heart attacks and strokes, and of the angiotensin converting enzyme (Ace) inhibitors for the treatment of high blood pressure and heart failure.
It was John's work that led to our understanding of the prostaglandins and the discovery of the mode of action of aspirin. For this he shared a Nobel prize in 1982. As a researcher, his greatest innovation was the ingenious cascade bioassay technique that allowed biological mediators to be detected and quantified in body fluids or tissue effluents in real time.
John was born in Tardebigg, Worcestershire; his father - the son of a Russian immigrant - worked as a carpenter, and his mother came from a farming family. His parents were keen for him to be educated well, and after primary and secondary schools in Birmingham, he went to Birmingham University in 1943 to read chemistry.
His interest in the subject probably started when his father gave him a chemistry set. Ensuing experiments caused an explosion and led to a prudent decision by his father to build a shed in the garden as John's first laboratory.
However, John was not bitten by chemistry as a career, and in 1946 he moved to St Catherine's College, Oxford, to do a BSc, and later a DPhil, in pharmacology in Josh Burn's department. This move was a leap into the unknown; indeed, when offered the BSc post in Oxford he had to look up, as he later recalled, exactly "what pharmacology was all about", but it was a decision that determined his career.
After Oxford he had a spell at Yale, returning to the UK in 1955 to take up a post as senior lecturer in pharmacology at the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS). There he stayed for 18 years until moving to the Wellcome Foundation to become group research and development director in 1973.
John's time at the RCS was probably his most productive period. There he learned his trade and established his reputation. Colleagues found his leadership inspirational. He taught us how to work, teach, write, learn and even how to conduct ourselves as scientists. He was ever curious, a wonderful communicator with a deep understanding of the process (and business) of research, able to analyse problems, find the pivotal issues, and offer (usually novel) solutions.
John gathered around him young scientists from all over the world and in return for his support and friendship, he demanded honesty, openness and enthusiasm - and where possible, originality. His research ethic was to look for the tangible, the biologically measurable; to make experiments as simple as possible; to concentrate on what was achievable; to aim for important advances; and not to linger with projects once "the cream was gone".
It was a lesson in research management to see how, overnight, he turned around the thrust of the department at the RCS to tackle his hunch that aspirin might work by inhibiting the synthesis of prostaglandins.
He continued to do research at the Wellcome Foundation, but by then he was working mainly as a director and with responsibility devolved. Even so, it was at the Wellcome that he was closely involved in the seminal discovery of prostacyclin, a natural substance that dilates blood vessels and stops blood platelets aggregating.
After retiring in 1985, he established, as founding chairman and director, the William Harvey Research Institute at St Bartholomew's hospital medical college, in which he actively participated up until his last illness.
In his career John inspired visiting scientists, of whom many are now leaders in their own right. They came from all over the world, so in addition to those in the UK, there are now disciples in or from Honduras, Brazil, Poland, Australia, the US, Japan and Canada.
John published around 900 original articles, wrote or edited 20 books, received more than 25 medals, prizes and awards, was made a fellow of around 30 societies or institutions (including Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1974), and was given honorary awards by 17 universities. In 1984, he was knighted in the new year's honours list for services to pharmaceutical science.
John was one of the greatest pharmacologists of the 20th century; for his colleagues, he will be remembered as an outstanding teacher, speaker, writer, thinker, manager, friend and all-round inspiration.
John spent his last months in a nursing home. He never fully recovered from twice breaking his hip earlier this year. Ultimately, he died from pneumonia.
He is survived by his wife Daphne, and his two daughters, Nikki and Miranda.
· John Robert Vane, pharmacologist, researcher and teacher, born March 29 1927; died November 19 2004
