Anthony Fairclough Lever

Anthony Fairclough Lever (“Tony”), who was the director and driving force of the Medical Research Council blood pressure unit in Glasgow, Scotland, between 1967 and 1994, and, latterly, professor emeritus in the Department of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow, died peacefully on Sunday 25 March 2018, aged 89 years.

Born on 18 March 1929 in Surrey and educated in London, Tony graduated BSc in 1952 and bachelor of medicine and surgery in 1955. An outstanding student, he was awarded gold medals in pathology and medicine. His postgraduate career was equally impressive, and he became a house physician to the legendary Sir George Pickering at St Mary’s Hospital in London. A research fellowship and a lectureship, together with membership and then fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of London, all followed in rapid succession.

In 1956, George Pickering moved to Oxford as Regius professor of medicine, and Stanley Peart took over the medical unit at St Mary’s Hospital. Peart had purified and sequenced angiotensin II, the product of the action of the renal enzyme renin and the most potent vasopressor agent known at the time. Tony Lever, together with J Ian S Robertson and Jehoiada J Brown, joined the research team as clinician scientists to tackle the challenge of whether renin and/or angiotensin were the cause of the hypertension caused by renal artery constriction.

In 1964, Tony Lever and Ian Robertson devised the world’s first reliable and …