Paul M. Vanhoutte, pioneer of cardiovascular biology and mentor of numerous fellows worldwide dies in Paris

Paul M. Vanhoutte, MD, PhD, hon. mult. (1940–2019).

Vanhoutte (1940–2019), a native of Belgium and citizen of the world, studied medicine in Ghent and did his PhD at the University of Antwerp. His academic career started at the University of Gent under the mentorship of the then famous physiologist Isidor Leusen and continued as a research associate with the eminent physiologist John Shepherd, at the Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundation in Rochester Minnesota, USA. Besides seminal work on veins and their regulation the two published a widely read textbook «The Human CardioVascular System», Raven Press, New York 1973.

When the chair of pharmacology at Antwerp University came up in 1973, he moved back to Belgium to take this position. With his gifted fellow Jo de Mey he published, inspired by Robert F. Furchgotts seminal work, pioneering studies on endothelium-dependent relaxations of arteries and veins.

In 1981 he returned to Rochester to become Professor of Physiology and Pharmacology at the Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundation. This turned out to become his scientifically most productive period with a growing number of brilliant fellows from all over the world. His team began to characterise the role of endothelial cells and their products in physiology and a number of cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease, cerebral vasospams, just to mention a few. He was the first to show that the then so-called endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF) was inactivated by superoxide suggesting that EDRF might be a small molecule such as nitric oxide (NO) as shortly thereafter proposed by Robert Furchgott and experimentally proven by Salvador Moncada. The monography «The Endothelium – Modulator of Cardiovascular Function» (CRC Press, Boca Raton, Fla., USA 1988) that he wrote with Thomas F. Lüscher summarised this evolving new field and its impact in cardiovascular biology and medicine.

In 1989 he moved to the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, USA to run the Centre for Experimental Therapeutics and in 1992 he accepted the position as Vice-President of Research and Development, and Director of Discovery Research at the Institut de Recherches Internationales Servier, in Courbevoie, Paris, France. In 2002 he escaped evolving mandatory retirement in France when he was offered to become Distinguished Visiting Professor and Director/Founder of the Biopharmaceutical Development Centre, at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong where four years later he became the Head of the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacy. Since 2015 until his death, he was permanent Visiting Professor in the same department, continuing to co-supervise PhD students and to advise senior investigators of the department. In addition, he was visiting professor at the Centre for Molecular Cardiology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland and at the Department of Physiology in Odense in Southern Denmark.

His amazing scientific productivity made him one of the best cited scientists worldwide with an h-index of 128. He has co-authored or edited 36 books and has published 669 original research papers, and 574 editorials, reviews or chapters in books. His major scientific contribution has been to characterise the importance of endothelial cells in the control of the underlying vascular smooth muscle in vascular health and disease, and to highlight the complexity of the molecular mechanisms of that regulation (Figure 1). His discoveries brought him countless awards and honorary degrees from the Universities of Antwerp and Ghent in his home country Belgium as well as from the Universities of Zurich and Montreal, from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Monash University in Melbourne and the University of Strassbourg, the Gr. T. Popa University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Iasi, Romania and of the University of Odense, Denmark.

Figure 1. The endothelium in control of vascular smooth muscle and platelets.

Beyond that, Paul Vanhoutte was a superb mentor who fostered the careers of numerous young clinicians and scientists from around the world. Indeed, many of his fellows are and were holding chairs in the United States, Japan, Australia, Switzerland, Denmark and many other countries.

Lastly, Paul Vanhoutte will be remembered because of his humour and for his famous quotes such as: «Science must be fun» and «the tissue never lies». Indeed, it was fun working with him for all who ever had the privilege to meet the grand man of cardiovascular research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.