The platelet aggregometer and beyond: Gustav Born at the Royal College of Surgeons

In 1960, Gustav Born was appointed to head the Department of Pharmacology at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. The next 13 years  would prove to be  the most productive in his scientific career and the most important in the development of the Department into an internationally respected research center. The advances in platelet biology were made possible by the evolution of the platelet aggregometer, brilliantly conceived and developed by Born and his team, into a robust and reliable scientific instrument, with which they, quite literally, revolutionized the study of platelet function. For the first time, the actions of agonists and antagonists could be quantified pharmacologically, and the biochemistry of aggregation analyzed, identifying two systems, cyclic nucleotides and phospholipid metabolism, as crucial to the understanding of the pathophysiology of human platelets. Recognizing the critical importance of the interplay between platelets, leucocytes and the vascular endothelium, in the formation and in the rupture of atheromatous plaques, his group also investigated aggregation in the microvasculature in vivo. Born's never-ending flow of ideas and enthusiasm for their exploration created an atmosphere of discovery in his group that matched that of his colleague, John Vane. It was a collaboration between these two teams that elucidated the mechanism of action of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and established the prophylactic use of aspirin as an anti-thrombotic therapy - indeed, two of the most significant pharmacological discoveries of the twentieth century.