'The Paradoxical Pharmacologist'

Richard Bond Retires After 3-Decade Career Challenging Paradigm of Beta Blockers in Asthma

Feb. 28 — Not one to shy from controversy, University of Houston College of Pharmacy two-time alumnus Richard A. Bond, Ph.D. (’88), B.S. (’83), now professor emeritus, recently retired from the college after a career spanning three decades of scholarship, research and mentorship.  Bond’s scientific career spanned three different stages and for each stage, Bond somehow wound up with top mentors.

His research collaborations would bring him into friendships with eminent colleagues and mentors, such as Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D., co-recipient of the 2012 Nobel Prize in chemistry; the late Sir James Black, Ph.D., M.O., co-recipient of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Medicine and considered the "Father of Beta-blockers"; and the late Paul M. Vanhoutte, M.D., Ph.D., a famous vascular pharmacologist who authored over 1,100 publications.

Early Challenges

After earning his bachelor’s degree in pharmacy in 1983 and a short stint in clinical pharmacy, Bond returned to UHCOP to earn a Ph.D. in pharmacology under now retired pharmacologist David E. Clarke, Ph.D., who also would become one of his lifelong friends.

Bond then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Experimental Therapeutics under the mentorship of the center’s director at the time, Vanhoutte. Clarke and Vanhoutte mentored the first stage of Bond’s career and led to the discovery of a novel adrenergic receptor, which was named the beta3-adrenergic receptor after another group cloned the receptor a year later.

However, Bond was forced to abandon his dreams as a researcher and pursue a different career because all his funding proposals were rejected one by one at the conclusion of his postdoctoral training. Bond enrolled in law school, only to learn a short time later than one of his final applications was approved.

As time went on, Bond’s research attracted funding from such organizations as the National Institutes of Health, the American Asthma Foundation (AAF), and the American Heart Association.

During this second stage of his scientific career, Bond began a highly productive collaboration starting in 1993 with Robert J. Lefkowitz. Their research provided evidence for a third class of drugs, "inverse agonists," to add to the standard "agonist" drugs that activated receptors and "antagonists" drugs that blocked receptors.

Pursuing paradoxes

In the last scientific stage of his career, Bond gained notoriety for applying the lessons learned from the treatment of congestive heart failure – in that certain drugs may have acute benefits but chronic risks and vice versa – to his own focusing on asthma.

Dubbing this concept "paradoxical pharmacology," Bond challenged dogma by presenting evidence showing that beta adrenergic inverse agonists (beta blockers) – contraindicated in asthma due to initial airway hyperresponsiveness and inflammation – showed the opposite result with chronic administration.

Bond would continue to face challenges throughout his career by challenging orthodoxy in the strict contraindication against beta blockers in asthma patients. Yet, the experimental data continued to back up his theories that some beta blockers, which also were the first drugs to move from being contraindicated in congestive heart failure to now being in the first line of treatment, could benefit patients over time while exacerbating symptoms in the short term. Although the debate and research has been passed on to others in field, Bond’s place among the field’s pioneers is indisputable.

"Dr. Richard Bond is one of our college’s great success stories," said F. Lamar Pritchard, Ph.D., R.Ph., UH College of Pharmacy dean and Humana Endowed Dean’s Chair in Pharmacy. "Richard’s love for scientific discovery and research has brought him fame and the respect of peers as well as a few detractors and critics. However, Richard has stayed true to his belief that dogma – if true and valid – should be able to withstand asking questions and putting it to the test."

‘Major Figure’

Awarded three U.S. patents, Bond is among the top 2% most cited researchers in an analysis published in the journal PLOS One and was credited as a “major figure” in pharmacology (alongside mentors Black and Lefkowitz) in a retrospective article on the discipline of pharmacology published in the journal Biochemical Pharmacology.

With nearly 10,000 citations, he has authored/coauthored more than 100 papers in such prestigious publications as Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PLOS One, and the British Journal of Pharmacology (BJP). His body of work also spans seven book chapters, 20 invited publications, and over 200 abstracts. Bond has traveled the globe, conducting over 100 invited lectures across Europe, Australia, South Africa and Columbia, to name just a few locations.

His service record includes numerous voluntary positions at the college and university levels, including chairing the University Research Council, a member of the UH Faculty Senate, and as the university ombudsman. His external service activities include editor and senior editor appointments on the BJP Editorial Board.

Bond’s research, teaching and service activities earned him fellow status in the American Asthma Foundation and both fellow and honorary fellow designations from the British Pharmacological Society. Bond has received multiple awards at the university and college levels and named among the 100 Most Influential Hispanics by Hispanic Business magazine.

Returning the favor

During his career, Bond mentored junior faculty members and 14 Ph.D. students. He also served on the Graduate Committee for 20 other Ph.D. students and mentored several postdoctoral fellows and Pharm.D. students during research rotations.

Bond also was instrumental in the creation of the Sir James Black Graduate Student Travel Endowment at UHCOP. In honor of his late friend and colleague, this fund provides travel support for winning student presenters from the annual PPS department research symposium.

In reflecting on his career, Bond emphatically pointed to his immediate circle of colleagues for his success.

"Most of the credit for any of my achievements has to go to my mentors," Bond said. "And you must be the best mentor to your mentees, who will be your longest-lived accomplishment. They will live long beyond when people stop reading your papers. No matter where you are in your career, everybody needs a mentor."