Who is John West? - Middle/High School

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Who is John West?
From Mt. Everest to Deep Space

John B. West was born in Adelaide, Australia, in 1928. He has been interested in science for as long as he can remember. Already in high school he was doing simple chemical experiments at home and building radios. It was in his last years of high school that he fell in love with physics and chemistry. Why not biology? Those were the days before biology was taught in his high school.

Medical School in Other Countries
John attended high school in Adelaide, although it was called Prince Alfred College. It was one of the better schools in Adelaide and one of his uncles was one of the teachers. He then attended Adelaide University, which at the time was the only university in the state of South Australia. He went straight from high school into medical school (called the faculty of medicine). This was the system at Adelaide University at the time. It is also the way it works in many other parts of the world where students go from high school (or gymnasium as it’s called) into medicine or some other science. However, John did not become interested in physiology in medical school, partly because it was badly taught.

Finding Physiology
After receiving his degree, Dr. West moved from Adelaide to London, UK. He made the move after a year, because research programs in medicine were not well developed in Adelaide at the time and because he wanted to see the world. It was while he was doing his training in London that he realized that his interests were in physiology associated with pressures, flows, resistances, elasticity, etc. This led him to the natural conclusion to go into either physiology of the heart (cardiovascular) or lungs (respiratory).

A Winding Career Path
An opportunity opened up at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London because they were starting a new research program in respiratory medicine and physiology. At the time he was very much influenced by Julius H. Comroe's book The Lung (1st edition). During his 15 years at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Dr. West worked with a new piece of equipment called a respiratory mass spectrometer that allowed him to study the gas that you exhale when you breathe out.

He was able to take advantage of several opportunities to branch out in his research. In 1960 he took part in an expedition to the Himalayan Mountains. In 1961-62 he traveled to the US to spend a year at the University of Buffalo (as it then was called) to continue his research on the lung. Then in 1967-1968, he returned to the US to the NASA Ames Research Center to study the effects of weightlessness on the lung.

In 1969 he was asked to move to the US to help start a new medical school at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He did so and is still there today as a Professor of Physiology and Medicine in the School of Medicine.

Physiology Research in the Himalayas and in Deep Space
Dr. West is a very active researcher. Unlike most researchers today, he does research in more than one area. He has worked on several aspects of respiratory physiology, particularly the distribution of blood flow in the lung. Currently he is very interested in the properties of the smallest blood vessels in the lungs (capillaries) and in particular how they are damaged when exposed to high stresses.

A second area of research interest is high‑altitude physiology. Dr. West has been fortunate to take part in two major Himalayan expeditions. In 1960 he learned that Sir Edmund Hillary was planning a physiological expedition to the Himalayas. When he asked to go along to help with the experiments, he was accepted, even though he had never done any mountain climbing. This was the so-called Silver Hut expedition where he and a small group of physiologists wintered at an altitude of 5800 m (19,000 ft) just south of Mt. Everest. This began a long interest in high-altitude medicine and physiology. The second expedition Dr. West was asked to lead. This was the 1981 American Medical Research Expedition to Mt. Everest during which the first-ever physiological measurements on the mountain’s summit were made. His interest in this field continues today with a project on oxygen enrichment of room air at high altitude that promises to be very important for commuters who work at very high altitudes. His monograph “High Life” is a standard history of high altitude physiology and medicine. He also edits a new journal, High Altitude Medicine & Biology.

Because of his interest in the effects of gravity on the lung, Dr. West took a year off in 1967-1968 and returned to the US to the NASA Ames Research Center to study the lung in weightlessness. His studies on lung function in astronauts have been conducted on four Spacelabs. In addition, he has one experiment currently running on the International Space Station.

Teaching Physiology and Teaching Others How to Teach
For the past 30 years, Dr. West has been in charge of the physiology course at UCSD for first-year medical students. He has always been interested in teaching and how to be a good teacher. He has even written several books on the topic. He is a very good teacher himself and received a national award from APS in 2002 called the Arthur Guyton Teacher of the Year Award for his outstanding teaching ability.

Historian and Author
His third interest is in the history of physiology. Not only has Dr. West written books on this topic but he has also developed an historical collection of materials on high altitude medicine and physiology in the main library at the University.

Outside Interests
In his free time, Dr. West enjoys listening to classical music and reading good literature. He also likes to fly radio‑controlled gliders at the famous Torrey Pines Glider Port, which is only ten minutes from his home. In addition, he does volunteer work for a private library in La Jolla called the Athenaeum where he has served on the Board of Trustees for several years.

Advice to High School Students
I think that a career in physiology offers many satisfactions. The research can cover a very wide spectrum from basic molecular biology through to applied physiology, such as high‑altitude and space physiology that I have worked in. One of the advantages of the life sciences is that there is always the possibility of making a discovery that will greatly benefit mankind.