Statins pioneer Akira Endo dies aged 90

Prof Endo was born in rural Japan in 1933, and went on to study biochemistry at Tokohu University.

It was while working for the pharmaceutical company, Sankyo, in Tokyo in 1973 that he made his big discovery.

It took many years of studying thousands of fungi before finding one that lowered cholesterol.

First attempts at harnessing it proved too toxic to give to patients. Other pharmaceutical companies then began to search for similar compounds.

And in September 1987 the first statin – lovastatin – was approved in the US for clinical use.

Fungi have spawned some of our most important drugs – most famously, the antibiotic penicillin.

It was found by chance by Dr Fleming in 1928, when he returned from holiday to find mould growing in a Petri dish containing bacteria. He noticed the mould produced a chemical that appeared to stop the bacteria growing. That substance came to be known as penicillin.

Similarly, the fungus-derived cyclosporine has revolutionised transplant medicine since its discovery in the 1970s, helping to prevent donor organs from being rejected by the body.