70th APS President (1997-1998)
Allen W. Cowley, Jr.
(b. 1940)
Allen W. Cowley, Jr. was installed as the 70th President of the American
Physiological Society at the close of the Society's Spring Meeting this
April in New Orleans, LA.
Cowley was appointed as professor and chairman of the Department of
Physiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1980. He completed his PhD
degree training in physiology in 1968 with John Scott at Hahnemann Medical
School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He then joined Arthur Guyton at the
University of Mississippi Medical Center and completed his postdoctoral
training in 1970. He continued in that department and was promoted to full
professor in 1974. He was visiting professor of physiology at Harvard
Medical School in 1974 and 1975, working with Clifford Barger and Claude
Lechene.
The central theme of most of his research has been related to the study
of renal and vascular mechanisms involved in the long-term control of
arterial pressure. His early work on the baroreceptor reflexes in dogs
demonstrated that the baroreceptors participated in only short-term
stabilization of arterial blood pressure and did not determine the long-term
set point around which arterial pressure oscillated. He pioneered the use of
continuous, 24-hour recording techniques coupled with computer averaging to
quantify long-term average levels of arterial blood pressure and
demonstrated that sinoaortic baroreceptor denervation did not alter the
average level of blood pressure. His work with the renin angiotensin system
was the first to quantitate the ability of the system to normalize changes
in arterial pressure by determination of the open-loop feedback gain of this
control system.
Redirecting his studies related to the role of vasopressin and the
regulation of vascular tone, he demonstrated that small, physiological
increases of circulating arginine vasopressin could exert potent, systemic
vasoconstrictor facts in the absence of the baroreceptors reflexes. He then
characterized the open-loop feedback gain of this pressure control system
and demonstrated that vasopressin was an important short-term controller of
arterial blood pressure with a feedback gain equivalent to that of the
baroreceptor reflexes and the renin-angiotensin system.
Much of Cowley's work has revolved around mechanisms involved in the
long-term control of sodium and water balance and the long-term control of
arterial blood pressure in chronically instrumented dogs and rats. Much of
his work has focused on achieving an understanding of the relationship
between body fluid volume and arterial pressure regulation and the
integration of these two elements. Studies in his laboratory and his
collaborations uncovered the mechanism of pressure-natriuresis and directly
demonstrated that this mechanism is reset in every form of hypertension yet
studied. Studies in his research program have shown the mechanisms, whereby
a reduction of renal function and volume expansion leads to an increase in
systemic vascular resistance via local autoregulatory responses. His work
established that chronic elevations of blood volume as small as 5% result in
locally induced increases of vascular resistance and hypertension in the
presence of reduced renal function.
His most recent research has focused on the role of the renal medulla and
the consequences of changes of medullary blood flow to this region upon
sodium excretion and arterial blood pressure and on searching for
quantitative trait genetic loci related to the alterations of renal and
vascular function in inbred, genetic models of hypertension. The
applications of molecular genetics to the understanding of physiological
function represents the central theme of most of his current research.
Cowley has authored more than 170 publications and has contributed
chapters to 30 books. He has been an active member of the American
Physiological Society since 1972, serving as Councillor for the Society for
five years, chairman of the Water and Electrolyte Homeostasis Section, and
secretary of the Cardiovascular Section. He has also served on the executive
councils of several other scientific societies, including the American Heart
Association Council for High Blood Pressure Research, the AHA Basic Science
Council, and the Inter-American Society of Hypertension. He has served as
chairman for the Council of High Blood Pressure Research of the American
Heart Association and as president of the Association of Chairmen of
Departments of Physiology. He has served on numerous NIH study sections and
has served on more than 10 editorial boards including three journals of the
American Physiological Society.
Cowley is currently the director of the NIH Specialized Center for
Hypertension Research at the Medical College of Wisconsin, which has as its
emphasis on the search for genes responsible for high blood pressure. He is
the director of a NIH training grant in high blood pressure research and,
throughout his career, has trained more than thirty postdoctoral fellows and
students. He recently received the Distinguished Achievement Award of the
Scientific Councils of the American Heart Association and became the first
Earnest H. Starling Distinguished Lecturer of the American Physiological
Society.
|
