Latest news with #RogerAltounyan
Business Mayor
27-04-2025
- Health
- Business Mayor
How my father, Roger Altounyan, helped asthma sufferers
My father, Dr Roger Altounyan, discovered Intal (sodium cromoglicate) in the 1960s, at a time when many of his medical colleagues wrote off asthma sufferers as hypochondriacs (Letters, 18 April). He was an asthmatic and a doctor, and was determined to prove them wrong. He conducted experiments on himself and in a secret Cheshire laboratory over 10 years, testing about 500 compounds before finally declaring eureka. Then he researched how best to dispense his drug into the lungs of patients. Thanks to his time spent behind a propeller as a wartime fighter pilot, he hit on the idea of the Spinhaler. My father died prematurely as a result of his self-experimentation. During the last year of his life, I recorded his story, which inspired me to create a charity dedicated to him called Stories for Life. He was normally mild-mannered. But when I was recording his story, I asked him if he regretted his decade of drug testing and he banged his fist hard on our dining table, saying: 'Don't be so ridiculous, Barb. I'd do it all over again.' Barbara Altounyan London Do you have a photograph you'd like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers' best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays. READ SOURCE
The Guardian
27-04-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
How my father, Roger Altounyan, helped asthma sufferers
My father, Dr Roger Altounyan, discovered Intal (sodium cromoglicate) in the 1960s, at a time when many of his medical colleagues wrote off asthma sufferers as hypochondriacs (Letters, 18 April). He was an asthmatic and a doctor, and was determined to prove them wrong. He conducted experiments on himself and in a secret Cheshire laboratory over 10 years, testing about 500 compounds before finally declaring eureka. Then he researched how best to dispense his drug into the lungs of patients. Thanks to his time spent behind a propeller as a wartime fighter pilot, he hit on the idea of the Spinhaler. My father died prematurely as a result of his self-experimentation. During the last year of his life, I recorded his story, which inspired me to create a charity dedicated to him called Stories for Life. He was normally mild-mannered. But when I was recording his story, I asked him if he regretted his decade of drug testing and he banged his fist hard on our dining table, saying: 'Don't be so ridiculous, Barb. I'd do it all over again.' Barbara AltounyanLondon Do you have a photograph you'd like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers' best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.
The Guardian
18-04-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Roger Altounyan: the link from a hay fever remedy to Arthur Ransome
Letters recommending sodium cromoglicate for itchy eyes (14 April) are testament to a true drug discoverer of the late 60s who had an interesting earlier life. He was Roger Altounyan, born in Aleppo, Syria, and trained as a physician in Britain. Starting from khellin, a herbal remedy, he and his colleagues made and tested many variations, ultimately producing cromoglicate. Altounyan, as an asthmatic, tested these compounds on himself. Before this, he had been a fighter pilot and then a flying instructor, but before that he had a place in children's literature as Roger, the 'ship's boy' of the Swallow, in Swallows and Amazons. Arthur Ransome knew the Altounyan family in the Lake District and taught the children to SkidmoreWelwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire Do you have a photograph you'd like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers' best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.
