Inventor of Propofol is Featured Speaker at Papper Lecture
The Department hosted the 43rd Annual E.M. Papper Endowed Lecture on Thursday, November 21, with John (Iain) Baird Glen, PhD as guest speaker. Glen, a doctor of veterinary medicine, created and developed propofol while working as a research biologist at ICI Pharmaceuticals (now AstraZeneca) in the 1980s. Later, he assisted in the development of propofol clinical trials and the creation of devices suitable for continuous propofol infusion. He continued his work in anesthetic drug development until 2014.
After the lecture, a chair emeritus of our Department, Edward D. Miller, MD, provided some unique context. Dr. Miller, a former chair of the FDA Advisory Committee on Anesthesia and Life Support Drugs, had a role in the original approval of propofol in 1989. He reviewed some of the committee’s deliberations about the drug and underscored the transformative impact of propofol, a safe and effective anesthetic with rapid onset and recovery times, on anesthesia practice.
The Papper lecture drew a large audience from within CUIMC, including the Papper family, emeriti of the department, and from other university anesthesiology programs in the region.
