Emeritus Professor Tony Sampson

Professor Sampson was the subject lead for Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics in the Faculty of Medicine from 2006 to 2023, leading the delivery of teaching and assessment of clinical pharmacology across all years of the BM programmes, with additional teaching in MSc programmes in the medical school and in Health Sciences. He was the academic lead for the Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA) at Southampton. He was a Personal Academic Tutor for over 25 years, and over his career supervised 20 PhD/DM students and over 35 undergraduate research projects in FoM and Biological Sciences, including BSc, Intercalated BSc, Year 3 Research Projects (BMedSc) and MMedSc.

He was the Director of UG Programmes (2018-2021), the BM Year 1 Coordinator (2011-18), the module lead or deputy lead of several other BM modules in Years 1 and 2, and was the Education Lead for the School of Clinical & Experimental Sciences (CES) for over a decade until 2022. He has been an External Examiner at Keele Medical School, Durham Medical School, the International Medical University (IMU) in Kuala Lumpur, and for the BSc Pharmacology programme at Portsmouth. At University level, he was a member of the External Examiner Scrutiny Group (EESG), the Monitoring Evaluation & Enhancement Group (MEE) and the Modernising Student Experience (MSE) Advisory Group.

With Dr Derek Waller and Dr Andrew Hitchings he was co-author of the fourth, fifth and sixth editions of Medical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (Elsevier 2014, 2018 and 2022). 

Professor Sampson is a former Member, Chair or Co-Chair of innumerable faculty committees in their past and present incarnations including the Taught Programmes Management Committee (TPMC), Member, the Taught Programmes Assessment Committee (TPAC), the Quality Assurance & Enhancement Committee (QAEC), and the steering and assessment groups of all years of the BM programme. Professor Sampson was the education lead for the School of Clinical & Experimental Sciences until 2022, and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an elected Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society.

Tony Sampson gained a first degree in Natural Sciences at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, and a PhD in Pharmacology from King's College London. He spent two years in respiratory research at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London and in 1985 joined the pharmacology department at The Royal College of Surgeons of England, a group known internationally for its research on lipid mediators, including the Nobel-winning discovery of the mechanism of action of aspirin. As the Newman Foundation Lecturer in 1990-95 he collaborated with the Thoracic Unit at King's College School of Medicine to research the role of leukotrienes as mediators of respiratory diseases including asthma, cystic fibrosis, bronchiolitis and chronic lung disease of infancy, and supported clinical trials of the novel class of leukotriene modifier drugs.
In 1995, he relocated to the Immunopharmacology Group in Southampton led by MRC Clinical Professor Stephen Holgate. His research team focused on the role of leukotrienes and related mediators in asthma, allergy and aspirin intolerance, with studies also in dermatological, gastrointestinal and neurological disorders. He gained more than £6M in charitable and commercial funding and generated over 120 research papers, reviews, editorials and book chapters. Prof Sampson has supervised 20 doctoral and 30 undergraduate research students and presented over 40 invited and plenary seminars on leukotrienes and leukotriene modifier drugs at conferences in 25 countries. He was a consultant member of the international respiratory advisory (AIR) board of Merck & Co during the period that its leukotriene modifier drug for asthma management became a global market leader with annual sales over $4 billion.
After three years as deputy director of the Immunopharmacology Group, Tony Sampson was the director of the Allergy & Inflammation Research (AIR) division in 2002-05, supporting its merger into the School of Clinical & Experimental Sciences (CES) in refurbished laboratories funded by a SRIF grant of £10 million from the Wellcome Trust.
From 2006 to 2023 he led the Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics group. He was the leader of Year 1 of the Bachelor of Medicine (BM5/6/EU) programme from 2011 to 2018 and the Director of Undergraduate programmes from 2018 to 2021. He won the Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Award in 2011 and was voted ‘Outstanding Faculty Lecturer’ by Southampton medical students in 2013 and again in 2014. He was a trustee of the Asthma, Allergy & Inflammation Research (AAIR) charity from 2006 to 2016 and an editorial board member of the British Journal of Pharmacology, Clinical & Experimental Allergy and PLOSOne.
He is the co-author with Dr Derek Waller of the fourth, fifth ad sixth editions of Medical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (Elsevier Ltd., 2014, 2018, 2022), the best-selling medical pharmacology textbook in UK medical schools, with significant sales in the USA, Australia and Europe. The textbook promotes an integrated approach to the teaching and learning of pharmacology and prescribing.