Sir Salvador Enrique Moncada Seidner, FRS, FRCP, FMedSci (born 3 December 1944) is a Honduran pharmacologist and professor. He is currently Research Domain Director for Cancer at the University of Manchester.
In the past, he was the Research Director of the Wellcome Research Laboratories from 1986 to 1995 and, until recently, the Director of the UCL Wolfson Institute, which he established at University College London in 1996. His research interests include inflammation and vascular biology and he is currently working on the regulation of cell proliferation. He gained fame for his discoveries related to nitric oxide function and metabolism, and his exclusion from the 1996 Lasker Award and the 1998 Nobel Prize in medicine.
Sir Moncada was nominated by Xiomara Castro, the President of Honduras to serve as their first Ambassador to China following the Honduran government's recognition of the People's Republic of China in March 2023. The Embassy in Beijing is due to be opened when President Castro visits in June 2023.
Early life and education
Moncada was born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to Salvador Moncada and Jenny Seidner on 3 December 1944, and moved to El Salvador in 1948. He studied medicine at the Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de El Salvador from 1962 to 1970. In 1971 he went to London to work on a PhD with John Vane in the Department of Pharmacology in the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Royal College of Surgeons. After a short period of research in the National Autonomous University of Honduras he moved to the Wellcome Research Laboratories (Beckenham, Kent), where he became director of research in 1986. In 1996 he moved to University College London, where he set up the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research in the Cruciform Building, which he directed until 2012.
Research
His scientific career began at the Royal College of Surgeons, where he collaborated in the discovery that aspirin-like drugs inhibit prostaglandin biosynthesis. This finding elucidated the mechanism by which these drugs act as analgesic, antipyretic, and anti-inflammatory agents and also explained the mechanism by which they cause gastric damage. In 1975, at the Wellcome Research Laboratories, he led the team that discovered the enzyme thromboxane synthase and the vasodilator prostacyclin. This work contributed to the understanding of how low doses of aspirin prevent cardiovascular episodes such as myocardial infarction and stroke. As director of research at the Wellcome Research Laboratories he presided over the discovery and development of lamotrigine (an anti-epileptic compound), atovaquone (an anti-malarial) and zomig (for treatment of migraine headaches), and initiated the work that resulted in the development of lapatinib for the treatment of breast cancer. He was also responsible for the identification of nitric oxide as a biological mediator and the elucidation of the metabolic pathway leading to its synthesis. A great deal of the early work on the biological significance of nitric oxide in the cardiovascular system came from his laboratory, as well as some fundamental information about the role of nitric oxide in the peripheral and central nervous systems and in cancer. His later work has focused on the areas of mitochondrial biology and cell metabolism. Most recently, his work has led to the finding of the molecular mechanism that coordinates cell proliferation with the provision of metabolic substrates required for this process.
Publications
Moncada is the author of more than 500 peer-reviewed papers and highly cited reviews, including
Other interests
Moncada is interested in medical education and in the development of science and technology in Latin America. He has been a consultant of the Panamerican Health Organization (PAHO, the regional office of the WHO) and in recent years he founded Honduras Global – an international network of experts involved in supporting the development of Honduras.
Awards and honours
Moncada is an elected member of a number of international scientific societies. Foreign Member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (1994); Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London (1994), and Honorary Fellow of University College, London (1999). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1988.
He has received honorary degrees from more than twenty universities, including Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City (1995); Degree of Doctor "Honoris Causa" of the University Pierre & Marie Curie, Paris, France (1997) and Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland (2000).