Dr John Haylor

Following a career in university teaching and research, John's current part-time role involves sharing in the construction and delivery of pharmacology teaching to medical and science undergraduate students. To establish and deliver a pharmacology course for the postgraduate and undergraduate Masters courses for Physician's Associates at the University of Central Lancashire on both Preston and Westlakes campuses.

John initially trained and worked as a pharmacist in both primary and secondary care. John has published over 100 science papers and supervised over 30 postgraduate research projects. John has been involved in the teaching of pharmacology to science and medical undergraduate/postgraduate students over a period of some 35 years together with administration of their courses. He has developed new approaches to the undergraduate teaching of pharmacology to aid improvements in medical drug prescribing, including the use of polling systems to allow greater inclusion for large student groups. John's research at the University of Sheffield was always collaborative and centred around the kidney, initially concentrating on renal physiology with the Department of Physiology at Birmingham University, findings presented at both British and European science societies. Following a move to the Sheffield Kidney Institute, John undertook more applied research in clinical nephrology and as a director of the Sheffield Kidney Research Foundation became involved in raising the awareness of kidney disease and fund raising for research. With grants from national bodies (MRC, Wellcome, Kidney UK, Diabetes UK) and the pharmaceutical industry, new drug targets were examined to replace dialysis and kidney transplantation in the treatment of patients with renal failure including, in collaboration with the US biotechnology company Chiron, to examine the use a recombinant growth factor to improve renal function in patients with end-stage kidney disease. Research findings were presented nationally and internationally at world and specialised conferences including the annual national kidney meeting in the USA. Further collaboration with clinical radiologists centred on investigating issues such as the kidney failure induced by iodine containing contrast media used to visualise soft tissues on X-ray and the tissue fibrosis induced by gadolinium-containing MRI contrast agents in renal failure patients. Returning to the study of potential new drug targets, monoclonal antibodies were developed to inhibit enzymes involved in protein cross-linking as a treatment to slow renal progression. Interestingly, collaboration with the Royal Veterinary College in London established similar possibilities for the domestic cat.