Professor Hugh MacLean: one of the first British military research nephrologists and the pioneer of the first United Kingdom veterans' renal clinic.

Few people have been as successful in bringing together basic research, clinical science, and a contribution to military medicine as Professor Hugh MacLean. However, today he is almost forgotten. During World War 1, practicing within the realms of the new field of renal medicine, with minimal resources and in a military hospital, he conducted one of the first large-scale Medical Research Committee investigations into war nephritis involving 60,000 subjects.

Development and in vivo evaluation of Irinotecan-loaded Drug Eluting Seeds (iDES) for the localised treatment of recurrent glioblastoma multiforme.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is impossible to fully remove surgically and almost always recurs at the borders of the resection cavity, while systemic delivery of therapeutic drug levels to the brain tumour is limited by the blood-brain barrier. This research describes the development of a novel formulation of Irinotecan-loaded Drug Eluting Seeds (iDES) for insertion into the margin of the GBM resection cavity to provide a sustained high local dose with reduced systemic toxicities. We used primary GBM cells from both the tumour core and Brain Around the Tumour tissue from recurrent GBM patients to demonstrate that irinotecan is more effective than temozolomide.