Sune Bergström and Bengt Samuelsson discovered the mechanisms driving vascular disease

There are many physiological functions that need to be carefully regulated if we are to remain healthy and able to adapt to sudden changes in environment. For example, the blood must remain fluid, the blood pressure kept constant and in the event of an infection, white blood cells must be able to muster to the body’s defence.

The 1982 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine rewards the discovery of such a regulatory system, and was awarded to Sune Bergström and Bengt Samuelsson, professors at Karolinska Institutet, and Englishman John Vane, for “their discoveries concerning prostaglandins and related biologically active substances”.

Ulf von Euler coined the term

The name prostaglandin was not, however, coined by the 1982 laureates, but by Ulf von Euler, professor of physiology at Karolinska Institutet and 1970 Nobel laurate in Medicine or Physiology, who discovered the intriguing substance in semen and prostate glands – hance the name – back in the 1930s. In 1945 he asked Sune Bergström, then docent of physiological chemistry at Karolinska Institutet, his own medical alma mater, if he wanted to continue his work.

Sune Bergström accepted the offer and managed to isolate the first prostaglandins and to demonstrate that they were not a single substance but an entire system of related compounds. After having isolated pure prostaglandins, Bergström could relatively quickly determine their chemical structures.

One likely contributory factor was the mass-spectroscopic methods that were being developed at this time at Karolinska Institutet by the likes of Ragnar Ryhage.

Bergström also showed that there was a relationship between polysaturated fatty acids and the formation of prostaglandins, a fact that caught the interest of Bengt Samuelssons.

Important discoveries

Bengt Samuelsson was a doctoral student under Sune Bergström and had worked with him on the earlier structural studies of prostaglandins. Once he had earned his medical doctorate at Karolinska Institutet, he spent a year researching at Harvard in the USA before returning to Karolinska Institutet, where he decided to devote his time to the closer study of the reactions that occur when prostaglandins are formed.

In the 1960s and 1970s, he described in detail how prostaglandins are formed from fatty acids, particularly arachidonic acid. Samuelsson went on to isolate and determine the architecture of many important components of the prostaglandin system.

For instance, he discovered leukotrienes, which are released in response to hypersensitivity reactions and inflammation, and thromboxanes, which are produced by blood platelets and which reduce the flow of blood but also cause blood clots.

Explained numerous diseases

The prostaglandin research generated important knowledge about the normal workings of the body and explained the mechanisms driving numerous diseases, such as allergies, glaucoma, inflammations and vascular diseases. Such knowledge also opened the way to new therapies. For example, Bengt Samuelsson’s discovery of leukotrienes has given rise to drugs used in the treatment of asthma.

One area on which Sune Bergström worked was the role played by prostaglandins in the functioning of the reproductive organs, which led to the use of the substances as agents to induce abortion and childbirth and to treat haemorrhaging during delivery.

Apart from their careers as scientists, Sune Bergström and Bengt Samuelsson also presided over Karolinska Institutet, the former holding the office of president from 1969 to 1977 and the latter from 1983 to 1995.

Bengt Samuelsson died on 5 July, 2024.