emphasis on the importance of observations on human subjects was increased. black's appointment coincided with the onset of the straitened circumstances that all uk universities were to experience and that have continued in one form or another ever since. the changes he made helped the department to adjust to these harder times. to the regret of his departmental staff, black found that only the pharmaceutical industry could provide the facilities needed for the work he wished to pursue, and in 1978 he left to join the wellcome foundation. black was knighted in 1981 and in 1988 he got the nobel prize in physiology or medicine along with gertrude b. elion and george h. hitchings for their work on drug development. h.p.rang frs humphrey rang humphrey rang (born 1936) held the chair of pharmacology from 1979 to 1983. rang qualified in medicine at ucl and had worked in h.o.schild's laboratory while a medical student. he was the author of the first successful ligand-binding experiment of the modern era. this was based on his phd work in oxford, under william d.m. paton. rang had previously been the professor of pharmacology at southampton and at st. george's hospital medical school. he brought with him david colquhoun who was also returning to the department, having been appointed in 1964 as an assistant lecturer by h.o. schild. these appointments greatly strengthened the interests and achievements of the department in fundamental aspects of pharmacology, particularly the study of ion channels and receptors. in collaboration with m. maureen dale (also appointed during schild's headship), rang prepared the first edition of pharmacology, the successor to wilson & schild's applied pharmacology. in 1983 rang was offered and accepted the directorship of the sandoz institute of medical research, a division of sandoz, then an independent pharmaceutical company. the new institute was located in ucl and developed a close relationship with the department, both in teaching, to which members of the institute contributed, and in research. the heads of department since 1983. donald h. jenkinson (1983 - 1987) david a. brown (1987 - 2002) (astor chair of pharmacology) trevor g. smart (2002 - 2021) (schild chair of pharmacology) after rang's resignation, the chair of pharmacology became vacant. the head of department from 1983 to 1987 was donald.h jenkinson he had done his phd under bernard katz. in ucl's famous department of biophysics, and was yet another member of staff who had been invited to join the department by heinz schild. during his tenure the middlesex hospital medical school was merged with ucl's, including the two departments of pharmacology. during the 1980s the traditional role of heads of department was replaced by rotating headships that were no longer associated necessarily with an established chair. established chairs were, de facto, abolished as part of the move to corporatise universities. david colquhoun david colquhoun frs was appointed to the established chair in 1985. it was subsequently dubbed the a.j. clark chair, in honour of clark's role in the establishment of quantitative pharmacology. his work, with statistician alan hawkes and bert sakmann (nobel prize 1991) established the department as the world leader in the theory and experiment of single ion channels. after retiring from the a.j.clark chair in 2004, he worked on the misinterpretation of p values and its contribution to the irreproducibility that has come to light in some areas of science. d. a. brown frs was appointed in 1987 as head of department (he had previously held the same position at the school of pharmacy). in 1987, the merger with the middlesex hospital medical school was completed and david brown inherited the title astor chair of pharmacology from professor f hobbiger who had held that title at the middlesex. brown's appointment was intended initially to be the start of a 5-year rotating headship, but when colquhoun's turn became due, he decided that the job of head of department would not allow enough time to do the algebra and program development with which he was involved. donald jenkinson likewise declined to take another turn. luckily david brown agreed to continue and he remained head of department until 2002. his tenure saw a second merger, this time with the department of pharmacology at the royal free medical school, headed by professor annette dolphin, frs. david brown is renowned for his discovery of the acetylcholine (muscarinic)-sensitive potassium channel (m channel). the wellcome lab for molecular pharmacology the growing importance of molecular biology led brown & colquhoun to apply to the wellcome trust in 1990. they funded the building of the lab for molecular pharmacology which colquhoun directed until his retirement in 2004. trevor g. smart became head of department in 2002, with the title of schild chair of pharmacology. he also works in the ion channel field. after the demise of the department in 2007. smart became head of the new research department of neuroscience, physiology and pharmacology. stephanie schorge. in 2021, professor schorge succeeded trevor smart as head of the research department of neuroscience, physiology and pharmacology. she is the first female head of pharmacology since 1905. stuart cull-candy frs. stuart g. cull-candy works on glutamate-activated ion channels. he joined the department from ucl's department of biophysics and holds the gaddum chair of pharmacology. lucia sivilotti (a.j. clark chair of pharmacology) lucia sivilotti was appointed to the a.j. clark chair in 2014. she has run the ucl single ion channel group after colquhoun's retirement in 2004. she continued and greatly extended the work in the field of single channel kinetics. she owns the web site onemol.org.uk where the group's analysis programs and publications can be downloaded. the association of the a.j. clark chair with quantitative work on receptors has thus continued to the present day. the first of the nationwide research assessment exercises took place in 1986. the ucl department headed the list. it continued to be rated as the top department of pharmacology in each of the four research assessments that followed in 1989, 1992, 1996 and 2002. but this performance was not enough to save the department. the end of the department of pharmacology in 2004, malcolm grant became provost of ucl. he commissioned external reports on the reorganisation of the college. the distinguished vice-president of the university of manchester, richard alan north frs, was asked to assess several options for the reorganisation of the faculty of life sciences. one was to create large research departments, including one of neuroscience, physiology and pharmacology, from the existing academic departments. professor north's only comment on the options was that the proposed "research departments in life sciences were too big". grant accepted the conclusions except for the part about the size of departments. on 24 may 2007 grant persuaded the academic board to authorise him to act on its behalf and on 13 june 2007 the department of pharmacology was disestablished, after a century of distinction and innovation. the academic staff at the time had three main concerns about the proposals. (a) the separation of teaching from research is bad, especially for teaching: the fact that a degree is offered in, for example, pharmacology without a pharmacology department to support it, means that there is no guarantee that there will be staff qualified or fully motivated to teach it. moreover, the collegiality that comes from designing and providing a first-rate degree course is lost. (b) the size of the merged department of neurosciences, physiology and pharmacology means less interaction between staff, and less collegiate spirit. (c) the changes created two extra levels of administration, so that now five levels existed between academics and the provost. staff were told at the time that the new organisation would be rolled out to other faculties across ucl, though this has not happened. david colquhoun has kept a personal diary of the process on his blog: in memoriam department of pharmacology, ucl 1905 – 2007. on the positive side, ucl's current provost, michael arthur, has put much emphasis on the quality of teaching, and maintaining its connections with research. as of 2019, ucl still offers pharmacology degrees, though within the now merged neuroscience, physiology and pharmacology department.