Medical Journeys: Traveling Scholars from the 19th and 20th Centuries

Aubrey R. Morrison was born in Guyana in 1943, when the country was still under British rule. As was common at the time for students from the British West Indies, Morrison left Guyana in 1964 to go to Great Britain for professional training. Morrison entered the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin to study clinical medicine while simultaneously pursuing a medical degree at the University of London. He received his medical degree from the University of London in 1970.

Morrison was drawn to Washington University School of Medicine because of its rotating internship program. In 1973 Morrison was appointed chief resident at Barnes Hospital. Following his residency, Morrison held fellowships in Nephrology (1975) and Pharmacology (1978) at Barnes Hospital. Morrison joined the staff of the Washington University School of Medicine as an instructor in the department of Medicine. He was named an assistant professor of medicine and pharmacology in 1978 and became an associate professor in 1983. Promoted to full professor in 1987, Morrison is currently professor of Medicine, Molecular Biology and Pharmacology. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, the Royal College of Physicians of Canada, and the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland.

Morrison’s interest in kidney disease was sparked while in medical school when he completed his clinical training at Dublin’s Jervis Street Hospital, which had a strong emphasis on dialysis, renal disease and kidney transplants. As a pharmacologist and nephrologist, Morrison has studied the effects of anti-inflammatory drugs and cytokines on inflammatory processes in the kidney. He has made major contributions to the understanding of how these and other medications affect the kidney. Morrison’s laboratory is currently studying the role of RNA-binding proteins that stabilize and/or de-stabilize unstable mRNA (e.g. COX-2 mRNA) and determining their roles in colon cancer biology.