14 Facts About Iain Macintyre

Iain Macintyre FRS was a British endocrinologist who made important contributions to the understanding of calcium regulation and bone metabolism.

Iain Macintyre was born in Glasgow on 30 August 1924, the eldest son of John Iain Macintyre and Margaret.

Iain Macintyre went to school at Jordanhill College School, Glasgow, passing out as joint dux.

Iain Macintyre entered the University of Glasgow to study medicine and graduated MBChB in 1947.

Iain Macintyre joined the chemical pathology department at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, at the Hammersmith Hospital in London as a registrar.

Iain Macintyre designed and constructed a flame photometer that enabled very accurate measurements of blood calcium and magnesium levels.

Shortly after Douglas Harold Copp's discovery of the hormone calcitonin, Iain Macintyre's group demonstrated that the hormone was produced in the parafollicular cells of the thyroid rather than the parathyroid gland as suggested by Copp.

Iain Macintyre's laboratory purified and then sequenced both porcine calcitonin and human calcitonin.

Iain Macintyre's team demonstrated calcitonin gene-related peptide, which they went on to sequence and then characterise.

Iain Macintyre was promoted to the chair of endocrine chemistry and chemical pathology in 1967, and in 1982 was appointed director of the Wellcome Endocrine Unit based at Hammersmith Hospital.

On retiring from the Hammersmith Hospital, Iain Macintyre became research director at the William Harvey Research Institute of the University of London.

Iain Macintyre was the recipient of the IBMS Elsevier Award at the XIth ICCRH Conference in Florence in 1992.

Iain Macintyre was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1996, which awarded him the Buchanan Medal in 2006.

Iain Macintyre married Mabel Wilson Jamieson, on 14 July 1947 in the Chapel of the University of Glasgow.