Roger Altounyan

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Roger Edward Collingwood Altounyan (1922-1987) was an Armenian physician and pharmacologist who pioneered the use of sodium cromoglycate as a remedy for asthma. His family relocated to the United Kingdom where he studied medicine and started his pioneering research. Starting with khella, a traditional remedy for asthma, Altounyan discovered in 1965 that khella's active ingredient was khellin. He eventually produced a safer chemical based on khellin, sodium cromoglycate. This was later marketed as Intal by Fisons Pharmaceuticals, which was taken over by Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, who in turn were acquired into Aventis and sanofi-aventis. Prior to the RPR takeover, the R&D element of Fisons was sold to Astra, making it now part of AstraZeneca. Sodium cromoglycate was the first clinically utilized mast cell stabilizer. The mast cell plays a key role in allergic and asthmatic inflammation. Mast cells contain powerful inflammatory mediators which when released lead to inflammation and bronchoconstriction of the airway. Sodium cromoglycate stabilizes the mast cell thereby preventing the release of the mediators.