Eminent pharmacologist Dr Ralph Kohn has been awarded a honorary doctorate in science from the University of Salford.

Dr Kohn, 80, grew up in Salford after arriving in the UK as a refugee in 1940. Graduating from Manchester University, he pursued a career in pharmacology.

He says: “It was such an exciting era for drugs research. I decided that was the field that I wanted to spend my years in.”

He won postdoctoral fellowships to the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome and to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, the Academy of Medical Sciences and an Honorary Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society and the Royal College of Physicians. In 2006, he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society.

Also a professional musician, Dr Kohn officially retired in 1995 as he wanted to devote his time to other things. He set up the Kohn Foundation, which supports scientific, medical and artistic projects. “I am more active than ever. I don’t believe in retirement,” he says.