Winner of the Andrew Douglas Award is announced

The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh is pleased to announce the winner of the Andrew Douglas Award, for an original article in relation to sarcoid or other systemic granulomatous conditions. The winning article is as follows:

'Distinct T cell immunophenotypic signature in a subset of sarcoidosis patients with arthritis', by Avinash Jain, Harshit Singh, Alok Nath, Saurabh Chaturvedi, Sajal Ajmani, Durga P Misra, Vikas Agarwal.

The work was carried out in the lab of Professor Vikas Agarwal, Department of Clinical Immunology & Rheumatology, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, India.

The winning paper will be published in the upcoming September issue of the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (JRCPE) with an accompanying editorial by Professor Tripathi from the University of Texas. The Andrew Douglas Award also comprises of a medal and £500 for each of two original articles selected, one for sarcoid or other systemic granulomatous conditions as above, and one for tuberculosis.

This award recognises the contribution of the late Dr Andrew Douglas FRCPE (College Fellow from 1965 to 2013) to respiratory medicine. With Professor Sir John Crofton FRCPE, Dr Douglas co-authored in the Textbook of Respiratory Diseases in 1969, the first major British textbook of the post-war era on this subject, which over many editions and for many years stood alone as the national and, to a large extent, international bible of the specialty.

In 1986, Dr Douglas was awarded the College’s Cullen Prize, a “prize for the greatest benefit done to practical medicine” and was President of the Scottish Thoracic Society (1980-82). In 2001, in honour of his outstanding contribution to the specialty, Dr Douglas was awarded the British Thoracic Society’s Medal.

Commenting, Professor Angela Thomas OBE, president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh said:

Congratulations to this year’s winner of the Andrew Douglas Award - this was a fascinating paper which strongly contributes to its field. I would like to thank everybody who took the time to enter the award – I was really pleased with the number of submissions, and I note their collective and individual quality. Dr Andrew Douglas was a much loved, expert contributor to his field, and I am delighted that the College can honour him through this award.

Dr Vinod Ravindran, Editor-in-Chief of the JRCPE, added:

This was an interesting and important study as existing literature is sparse on distinct T cell patterns in Sarcoid patients with and without articular involvement. On behalf of the Journal, I congratulate the authors for their fine contribution. It is heartening that Dr Andrew Douglas' generous legacy to the College has enabled this prestigious annual College JRCPE Award. The announcement for next year's award shall be made in the September 2020 issue of the JRCPE.