John Coote & Stuart Egginton

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.96.44

Professor Hudlická, known to many simply as Olga, died unexpectedly after a fall. She was a member of The Physiological Society since 1972, and one of the premier vascular physiologists of the twentieth/twenty-first century. She had a remarkable life.

Olga was born in a small town in Czechoslovakia. Despite wartime occupation she completed her schooling, and afterwards entered Charles University (Prague). After her MD she joined the distinguished muscle physiologist Ernest Gutmann at the Czech Academy of Sciences, gaining a PhD in 1954. Her interest in the control of muscle blood flow became a passion for the rest of her research life. Drawing on her medical training, she used her impressive breadth of knowledge to gain unerring insights into microvascular physiology. A major contribution was in understanding the local mechanisms regulating growth of capillaries in skeletal and cardiac muscle, showing that mechanical factors (especially increased shear stress) in conjunction with growth factors play a powerful role in initiating angiogenesis.

This process is fundamental to muscle performance following endurance training. She saw with clarity how this could be applied to different clinical situations. Based on in vivo ischaemic models and electrical stimulation of muscles, she promoted therapeutic approaches to ameliorate peripheral vascular disease. This has proved of great benefit to patients with intermittent claudication, and also in other cases of poor muscle blood flow (e.g. heart failure).

Her outstanding early work in Prague led to her being elected Honorary Secretary of the Czechoslovakian Physiological Society (1960–1969). Her international reputation resulted in invitations to work at the Karolinska Institute (Stockholm, 1960), and Duke Medical Center (USA, 1964 and 1968).

For many years she and her husband, a physician at the main hospital in Prague, were subject to censorship and political surveillance by secret police. Hope for change with the liberalising reforms of Alexander DubČek in 1967 was soon quashed by a Warsaw Pact invasion with tanks and half a million troops. So in 1968 Olga and her family escaped and managed by various routes to reach Frankfurt in Germany, and eventually Birmingham in the UK at the invitation of Sidney Hilton, head of Physiology at the Medical School. Here Olga was reunited with Gerta Vrbová with whom she had worked in Prague, and another good friend, Andrzej Zbrozyna, who had left Poland in the early 1960s. She remained there until her retirement in 1993, and continued to work as Professor Emeritus. She had an intense work ethic believing that the best science is done by those who tackle problems in the lab.

Olga was a keen supporter of the physiological community, and played important roles in the British Microcirculation Society (Honorary Secretary 1985-1992; President 1996–1999). She published over 200 papers, chapters and reviews (the last published in 2011); an original monograph, Muscle Blood Flow, appeared in 1973, the highly influential ‘Angiogenesis’ in 1986, and Application of Muscle/Nerve stimulation in Health and Disease in 2008. Her influence on the field was recognised as Visiting Professor at Frankfurt/Main, California/Davis, and Caracas (Venezuela). Prestigious awards included the Annual Review Lecture (The Physiological Society, 1990), Zweifach Award and gold medal (USA Microcirculatory Society, 1996), President’s Lecture (American College of Sports Medicine, 1998), and Malpighi Award (European Society for Microcirculation, 2008).

Olga was extremely proud to join the liberal UK scientific tradition, and British science has clearly benefited enormously from her as with many other émigrés. She valued friends and was prepared to fight against injustice. In the last 10 years she became increasingly alarmed by the rise of autocracy in our universities that, tellingly, she likened to the totalitarian system from which she had fled in 1968. In 2004 she published an impassioned article in Physiology News lamenting the disappearance of the Department of Physiology in Birmingham, which she had grown to love. More recently, she devoted considerable energy to a campaign, which received vigorous support from the international scientific community, for reinstatement of a colleague who had been summarily dismissed for apparent ‘gross misconduct’. Her actions were vindicated when an Employment Tribunal dismissed the University’s case; she was pleased that Western democracy was not altogether corrupted!

In addition to an intense work focus, she had a considerable knowledge of classical music, art and literature, loved skiing and walking, all of which she enjoyed with her husband, a busy GP who predeceased her. Olga Hudlická was a remarkable person who will be much missed. She had an enquiring mind, always curious with a never-ending thirst for knowledge. Above all she was principled, honest, courageous, generous, loyal and supportive of others. She was much loved by her children and grandchildren, who she adored. She is survived by her daughter, also a scientist, and her son, a neurologist in Washington DC, a granddaughter and two grandsons.

A version of this obituary appeared in The Guardian in July 2014