Laurence Hurley, DSc
Howard J. Schaeffer Chair in Pharmaceutical Sciences
Professor, Pharmacology and Toxicology
Laurence Hurley is inspired to do his research for personal reasons.
“I got into it because my father died of pancreatic cancer in 1975,” he says. “I decided to make a pledge to him that I’d try to do something about the disease.”
Hurley, a native of Birmingham, England, became involved in cancer research at the University of Texas College of Pharmacy. He worked with Daniel Von Hoff, a clinical medical researcher, for 20 years before they both moved to The University of Arizona in 2000.
“At the University of Texas there was no medical center, and that was a major problem for me,” Hurley says. “I had spent 20 years at Texas and was ready to move on. [Former Dean] Jack Cole had been trying to recruit me since 1975. Twenty-five years later he succeeded!”
Today Hurley is trying to find ways to extend the productive lives of cancer patients.
“If we can’t give them a cure, at least we can extend their lives so that they live comfortably,” he says.
Hurley is also the Howard Schaeffer Chair in pharmaceutical sciences at the College of Pharmacy. In 2005 he became the second recipient of the George and Christine Sosnovsky Award in Cancer Therapy from the Royal Society of Chemistry.
“From a personal perspective, being from the Royal Society and in cancer, and because I was born in England, it’s very satisfying. I was very gratified to receive it.”
The award allowed Hurley to give a two-week scientific lecture tour in the United Kingdom during which he paid tribute to the people he knew, including his father.
“It was an opportunity to acknowledge why we do all this stuff,” he says.
Hurley started out in pharmacy by completing a one-year apprenticeship at Boots The Chemist, a pharmacy in Birmingham. He then pursued a BPharm at Bath University in England, and a PhD in medicinal chemistry from Purdue University in Indiana. After a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia in Canada, he taught at the University of Maryland and the University of Kentucky before finding his way to the University of Texas, and finally to UA.
In his spare time, Hurley enjoys reading historical novels--his favorite author is Gary Jennings—and traveling to new places. One of his favorite cities is Istanbul, but he’s also enjoyed visiting Budapest, Hong Kong, Bangkok, the Pacific Northwest in the U.S. and the Canadian Rockies.
He also enjoys spending time with his wife, Terry, a watercolor artist, and his two daughters, one of whom lives in Brussels, Belgium. The other daughter is studying at Georgia Tech; she and her father are working together on a research project in the area of cardiovascular medicine.
“It’s important to me because I had open-heart surgery almost three years ago,” he says. “I asked the doctor what I could do in return, and now I’m trying to find a new drug for drug-coated stents.”
Hurley’s biggest dream for the years to come is to find a cancer or cardiovascular drug that becomes approved.
“For a medicinal chemist, being at the bedside of the first patient to be treated with a drug that has emerged from your lab is truly sobering,” he says. “I feel extremely fortunate to have been able to experience this.”
Dr. Hurley's laboratory and office recently moved from the Arizona Cancer Center to the new Thomas W. Keating Bioresearch Building, which houses the BIO5 Institute.