Françoise Roch-Ramel (''née'' Ramel; 20 September 1931 – 26 June 2001) was a Swiss pharmacologist and a leading expert on the renal transport of organic

anions An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convent ...

and cations, especially uric acid.

Life and work

Born to Edwin Ramel and raised in

Château-d'Œx Château-d'Œx () is a municipality in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It is in the district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut. History Château-d'Œx is first mentioned in 1115 as ''Oit'', ''Oyz'', ''Oix'' and ''Oyez''. Prehistoric settlements Dur ...

, Switzerland, her major research focus was the renal excretion of

drugs A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via inhalat ...

and other

xenobiotics A xenobiotic is a chemical substance found within an organism that is not naturally produced or expected to be present within the organism. It can also cover substances that are present in much higher concentrations than are usual. Natural compo ...

. She was a professor at the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the

University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; french: links=no, Université de Lausanne) in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second oldest in Switzer ...

, where she was employed in the early 1960s as an assistant of Professor George Peters. From 1975 to 1990, Roch-Ramel was an associate professor at the University of Lausanne. According to Simmonds, she studied "renal transport of organic anions and cations, especially uric acid, in the kidney" since the beginning of her academic career. To do so, Roch-Ramel created her own micro-puncture techniques to study ion transport in several different mammalian species including humans, cebus monkeys, pigs, rats, cats, rabbits, mongrel dogs and Dalmatian dogs. Of particular focus was the renal excretion of drugs and other

. These studies included drug interactions and other clinical aspects of renal organic ion transport of cardiac glycosides, antibiotics and chemotherapy drugs. Her published work includes both academic papers as well as chapter contributions to many major texts including ''Diseases of the Kidney''. She was known to pay scrupulous attention to the methodology described in these publications and realized that the problems attached to the measurement of compounds, such as uric acid, had great importance on the validity of future academic studies.

Personal life

She married Alfred Roch in 1958.

Selected works

* Roch-Ramel, Françoise, Barbara Guisan, and Jacques Diezi. "Effects of uricosuric and antiuricosuric agents on urate transport in human brush-border membrane vesicles." '' Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics'' 280, no. 2 (1997): 839-845. * Burnier, Michel, Françoise Roch-Ramel, and Hans R. Brunner. "Renal effects of angiotensin II receptor blockade in normotensive subjects." '' Kidney international'' 49, no. 6 (1996): 1787-1790. * Roch-Ramel, Françoise. "An enzymic and fluorophotometric method for estimating urea concentrations in nanoliter specimens." ''

Analytical biochemistry ''Analytical Biochemistry'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal established in 1960. It covers the field of biochemistry. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2014 impact factor of 2.219. Abstracting and Indexing Th ...

'' 21, no. 3 (1967): 372-381.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roch-Ramel, Francoise 1931 births 2001 deaths Swiss pharmacologists People from Château-d'Œx Academic staff of the University of Lausanne 20th-century Swiss scientists Women pharmacologists 20th-century Swiss women scientists Swiss biologists Women biologists