65th APS President (1992-1993)
Stanley G. Schultz
(b. 1931)
Stanley G. Schultz, professor and chairman of the Department of
Physiology and Cell Biology at the University of Texas Medical School in
Houston, was installed as the 65th President of the American Physiological
Society at the close of the Society's Spring Meeting in Anaheim, CA.
During the 26 years he has been a member of the APS, Schultz has served
as editor of the American Journal of Physiology: Gastrointestinal and
Liver Physiology, Physiological Reviews, the second edition of the
Handbook of Physiology: Gastrointestinal System, and is currently an
associate editor of News in Physiological Sciences. He also served on
the recent Long-Range Planning Committee chaired by Ernst Knobil, whose
report entitled "What is Past is Prologue" was published in the December
1990 issue of The Physiologist. Schultz was elected to the Council in
1989 and as president-elect in 1991.
Schultz grew up in New York City. He received his baccalaureate, summa
cum laude, from Columbia University in 1952 and his MD degree from New
York University four years later. After serving an internship and residency
in internal medicine, he became an NIH postdoctoral fellow in cardiology and
developed an interest that prompted him to learn more about membranes and
electrophysiology, and in 1959 he joined the Biophysical Laboratories of the
Harvard Medical School sponsored by a National Academy of Sciences/National
Research Council Fellowship in Academic Medicine.
In 1962 Schultz was inducted into the Air Force as a Captain in the
Medical Corps and was stationed at the Brooks Aerospace School of Medicine
in San Antonio, Texas, where his primary responsibilities included teaching
radiation biology, monitoring Air Force research contracts, and carrying out
research dealing with the biological effects of radiation. It was here that
he launched his research interest in epithelial transport and, together with
Ralph Zalusky, demonstrated, for the first time, sodium-coupled sugar and
amino acid absorption by small intestine. These and subsequent findings
established the "sodium-gradient" hypothesis and provided the rationale for
the later development of oral dehydration therapy.
Schultz rejoined the Biophysical Laboratories in 1964 as an Established
Investigator of the American Heart Association and was promoted through the
ranks of instructor and associate in biophysics. In 1967 he joined the
Department of Physiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
as an associate professor and was promoted to the rank of professor three
years later. He assumed his present position in 1979.
Schultz is widely recognized for his contributions to the understanding
of epithelial ion transport. In addition to his work on sodium-coupled
nonelectrolyte absorption, he was one of the first to recognize the roles of
paracellular pathways in epithelia. In 1979 he and his former students
Raymond Frizzell and Michael Field suggested a cellular model for chloride
secretion by epithelial cells that is now widely accepted. More recently he
advance the notions of "homocellular regulation" of composition and volume
and the "pump-leak" parallelism in epithelial cells--subjects that are
currently under investigation in a number of laboratories.
Schultz has served as a member and chairman of the Physiology Test
Committee of the National Board of Medical Examiners and president of the
Association of Chairmen of Departments of Physiology. His awards include the
Hoffman-LaRoche Prize for Outstanding Contributions to Gastroenterology and
elections to the Association of American Physicians, to Honorary Membership
in the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society, and as Overseas
Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University. In 1981, Schultz was
listed among the 1,000 most-cited contemporary scientists and the 35
most-cited contemporary physiologists by the Institute for Scientific
Information.
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