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Anthony Keith Campbell (British Biochemist)

Anthony Keith Campbell FLS, FLSW, CBE is a British biochemist (born 30th April 1945), and honorary Professor based in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Cardiff University in Wales. He has an international reputation for his work and books on intracellular calcium, particularly calcium, and bioluminescence. He invented the application of a chemiluminescent label in immunoassay and DNA testing, developed with colleagues and bow used in several hundred million clinical tests per year world-wide. He also discovered the illness that afflicted Charles Darwin for fifty years – lactose and food intolerance.

Early life and career Anthony Campbell was born in Bangor, North Wales, but grew up in London, attending the City of London School. He obtained an exhibition at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and then a first-class degree in Natural Sciences, and a PhD in Biochemistry at Cambridge University. In 1970, he spent three months as a post-doctoral worker with Professor Bo Hellman at the University of Umea in Sweden. He moved to Cardiff as lecturer in Medical Biochemistry at the then Welsh National School of Medicine in 1970, and became Professor in Medical Biochemistry, followed by Professor in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Cardiff University.

Research His research has focused on in cell signaling, that lies at the heart of how hormones, neurotransmitters and drugs affect the human body. In particular, he has studied intracellular calcium as a cell regulator for over 40 years, pioneering the application of Ca2+-activated bioluminescent proteins to measure free Ca2+ in live animal, plant, bacterial and archaeal cells. He has published three seminal books on intracellular calcium as a universal regulator. He is also a world authority on bioluminescence, having studied widely the natural history of this remarkable phenomenon, and developed the use of genetically engineered bioluminescent proteins to measure chemical processes in live cells. His study of bioluminescence began during his PhD in Cambridge, when he developed firefly luciferase to measure ATP in liver organ cultures. Then working at the Marine Biological Association laboratory in Plymouth during the 1970s he studied the bioluminescent hydroid Obelia geniculata that grows in abundance on brown seaweeds around the British coast. As a result of research on deep sea bioluminescent organisms on the research ship RRS Discovery, he discovered that coelenterazine is the substance responsible for bioluminescent in at least eight phyla - Cnidaria, Ctenophora, Protozoa, Chaetognata, Mollusca, Arthropoda, Echinodermata, Chordata, and that bioluminescence is the major communication system in the deep sea. For the past 15 years his research focus has been lactose and food intolerance, which has led to a new hypothesis on the cause of irritable bowel syndrome, and the mystery illness which afflicted Charles Darwin for 50 years but was never cured. He has published 10 books, and over 250 internationally peer-reviewed papers on intracellular calcium, bioluminescence, lactose and food intolerance. In 2020 he published his first novel ‘Mirror Image; what Darwin missed’, a scientific mystery based in Anglesey.

Awards He is a elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1994, and was a member of its Council from 2010 to 2015. He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden in 1996. He won the Inspire Wales award for Science and Technology in 2011. In 2013. He was elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales in 2012 and awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s New Year Honours list in 2021. His chemiluminescence technology was awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize in 1998, and was selected by the Eureka project of Universities UK in 2006 as one of the top hundred inventions and discoveries from UK Universities in the past 50 years. When the UK celebrated 400 years of British patents, his key patent was selected at just one of sixty for this celebration.

Public engagement Anthony believes passionately in communicating science to the public, and in exciting pupils and students about natural history and cutting-edge science. This led him to found the Darwin Centre (www.darwincentre.com) in 1993, now in Pembrokeshire, where it has been a huge success, interacting with over 40,000 students, and affecting pupil achievement and University subject choices. He also founded the Public Understanding of Science (PUSH -Science in Health) group at Cardiff University in 1994. Now called Science in Health this organizes many events with schools and the public. He has had a laboratory in his house since he was 11 years old. In 1996 he and his wife Stephanie used his patent income to set up Welston Court Science Centre in Pembrokeshire, which is a facility to support the Darwin Centre. He has given regular talks on cell signaling, food intolerance, Darwin, and bioluminescence, at scientific meetings, to schools and the public. In 2016, with Stephanie, he set up The Young Darwinian, an international journal for school students to publish their projects and scientific experiences (www.theyoungdarwinian.com). Their current flagship projects are focused on the occurrence of microplastics and their damaging effect on living systems., and the importance of trees in the world’s ecosystem. He has appeared on several BBC children’s programmes and documentaries including Blue Peter, The Really Wild Show, Wildlife on One with David Attenborough, Tomorrows World with Phillipa Forrester, QED, The BBC Natural History Unit, Bristol, and Interviews on News at Ten and Wales Today, and the Discovery Channel Invention and Innovation series. His mottos is – Curiosity inspires, Discovery reveals.

Other interests He has been a keen musician all his life, as a tenor soloist, conductor and viola player. Trained under Gerald Davies at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. His solo performances include The Lighthouse by Peter Maxwell Davies, Amahl and the Night Visitors, directed by an opera producer from Covent Garden. He played the lead in several light operas at the New Theatre and Sherman Theatre, and other theatres in South Wales, including The Student Prince, Desert Song, New Moon, Gipsy Baron, Die Fledemaus, and Gilbert and Sullivan. He sang The Lute Music of John Dowland, with Michel Dintrich (lute) and John Green (narrator), involving concerts in Paris and Cardiff, Four Centuries of English song – Cardiff, Recitals in London, including Vaughan William’s On Wenlock Edge. Tenor soloist in oratorios including Handel’s Messiah, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Dvorak’s Stabat Mater, Haydn’s Creation, Mozart Requiem,Bach’s St Matthew and St John Passions at Brecon Cathedral, Bach Cantatas. Tenor solist at the Aldebrugh festival. Deputy Conductor of Cardiff Polyphonic Choir. Conductor of the University Hospital of Wales Choir and Chapel Choir. Tenor soloist in several BBC Radio oratorio broadcasts His interviews include BBC Radio 4 – Today with Jon Humphrys, BBC Radio 2 – The John Dunn Show, BBC Radio Wales – Their equivalent of Desert Island Discs; BBC Radio Wales – The Great Millennium Glow-worm hunt 2000; BBC Radio Wales – appearances with the Jamie Owen and John Noble shows Now he is developing a project ‘DNA sings’ to convert light into music. He also makes music in the kitchen, as a keen cook. As a student he was keen bridge player playing regularly for Cambridge University and Cambridgeshire County, his team winning the inter-Universities Waddington cup. Now, after 45 years, he has started playing again, is Chairman of Penarth Bridge Club, plays for East Wales, and writes weekly bridge articles for his local newspaper PenarthTimes/bridge. He has five children, and six grandchildren. He is also a keen naturalist.

Books by the author Campbell, AK (1983). Intracellular Calcium: its universal role as regulator. pp 556. John Wiley and Sons: Chichester. Campbell, AK (1988). Chemiluminescence: principles and applications in biology and medicine, pp608. Horwood/VCH, Chichester and Weinheim. Campbell, AK (1994). Rubicon: the fifth dimension of biology. pp 304. Duckworth, London. Campbell, AK and Matthews, SB (2005). Tony’s lactose free recipe book – the science of lactose intolerance and how to live without lactose. The Welston Press, Pembrokeshire. ISBN 0-9540866-1-9. Campbell, AK (2015). Intracellular calcium. Pp 789. Wiley, Chichester. Campbell AK (2017). Fundamentals of intracellular calcium, pp 428. Wiley, Chichester. Campbell AK (2020. Mirror Image: what Darwin missed. ISBN 0-9540866-3-5. The Welston Press, Pembrokeshire

Key reviews Campbell,AK Hallett,MB, Daw,RA Luzio,JP, and Siddle,K.(1979). Biochem.Soc.Trans. 7:865-869.The importance of measuring intracellular Ca2+. Campbell,AK. (1980) Pentacol 16,8-14. Luminescence as an analytical tool in biology and medicine. Campbell,AK and Luzio,JP. (1981)Experientia 37:1110-1112. Intracellular free calcium as a pathogen in cell damage initiated by the immune system. Campbell AK (2003). Rainbow Makers. Chemistry in Britain June 2003:30-33 Campbell AK (2003). Save those molecules! Molecular biodiversity and life. Journal of Applied Ecology. 40:193-203 Campbell, AK, Jenkins-Waud, J and Matthews, SB (2005). The Molecular Basis of Lactose intolerance. Science Progress 88, 157-202. Campbell, AK (2012). The production of new knowledge. In Scholars in Action: Past–Present–Future. The 300th anniversary of the Royal Academy of Sciences, pp 43 -78. Ed Lars Engwall, Uppsala University Press, Uppsala, Sweden. Campbell, AK and Matthews, SB (2014). Lactose intolerance. In Metabolism of Human Diseases – Organ physiology and pathophysiology. Pp 143 – 148. Ed. Lammert, E & Zeeb, M. Springer, Wien. Campbell AK (2018). Curiosity inspires, discovery reveals. The Young Darwinian Issue 1, pp 24-27.

Key papers Campbell,AK and Hales,CN.(1971). Exptl.Cell Res. 68:33-42. Maintenance of viable cells in an organ culture of mature rat liver.