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Lionel Henry Opie (6 May 1933 – 20 February 2020)
Lionel Henry Opie was born in the small town of Hanover in the
Karoo in 1933 and was the only son of Dr William Henry Opie
and Mrs Marie Opie.
Inspired by his father’s example to study medicine, Lionel
graduated in medicine from the University of Cape Town
(UCT) in 1955 with 1st class honours and the final year gold
medal. Following his internship at Groote Schuur Hospital, he
successfully applied for the Rhodes scholarship and read for a
DPhil at the University of Oxford from 1957, graduating in 1959
with a dissertation titled
The Physiology of Artificial Respiration
.
Immediately after leaving Oxford, he spent two years at Harvard
Medical School as the Samuel Levine Fellow in Cardiology,
doing research on myocardial metabolism.
He graduated with an MD from UCT in 1961 for his thesis
titled
Myocardial Intermediary Metabolism
. Lionel returned to
London to undertake further basic science research under the
supervision of Nobel prize winners, Professor Sir Hans Krebs
(of Krebs cycle fame) and Professor Sir Ernst Chain (who
had shared the Nobel prize with Fleming and Florey for the
discovery of penicillin).
Following his stint in the laboratory, Lionel was appointed
as a consultant in medicine at the Royal Postgraduate Medical
School in London in 1969. From 1970 to 1986 he was co-founder
and co-editor of the
Journal of Cellular andMolecular Cardiology
with Richard Bing. Later, Lionel would establish two new
journals with the help of Carol, his wife.
Lionel returned to Cape Town in 1971 and established his
laboratory, working on basic research in ischaemic heart disease
and cardioprotection. His initial research funding was made
possible through the generous donation by Christiaan Barnard
from the proceeds of his best-selling book,
One Life
. In 1976, the
South African Medical Research Council awarded Lionel a unit
and funded this for 22 years until 1998.
As a scientist, Lionel had several key contributions and (1)
worked out the key metabolic derangements of carbohydrate and
fatty acid metabolism of the ischaemic heart, (2) demonstrated
how acute myocardial infarction induces acute adrenergic
stimulation, which increases circulating free fatty acids, further
damaging the heart and inhibiting glucose uptake, and (3)
determined the role of beta-blockers in treating acute coronary
syndromes. These concepts had significant clinical implications,
and the treatment of acute coronary syndromes with beta-
blockers is now routine therapy worldwide and has saved
millions of lives.
continued on page 90…
In Memoriam
Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, University of
Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital; Hatter Institute for
Cardiovascular Research in Africa, Faculty of Health Sciences,
University of Cape Town; Cape Universities Body Imaging
Centre, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town,
Cape Town, South Africa
Ntobeko AB Ntusi, MB ChB, DPhil, MD,
ntobeko.ntusi@uct.ac.zaLionel Opie