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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 carrying out 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. He wasn’t able to study biology because 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 on the teaching faculty. He then attended Adelaide University, which in his day 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 procedure 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 postgraduate training there that he realized that his interests were in mechanics, such as pressures, flows, resistances, elasticity, etc. This led him to the natural conclusion to go into either cardiovascular or respiratory physiology.

While at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, 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 in the laboratory of Hermann Rahn at the University of Buffalo (as it then was called) to continue his research on ventilation‑perfusion inequality. 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 invited to move to the US and help establish a new medical school at the University of California, San Diego. He did so and remains there today as a Professor of Physiology and Medicine in the School of Medicine.

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 critically 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 running on the International Space Station.

Historian and Author
Dr. West’s third major interest is in the history of physiology. Not only has he written books on this topic but he has also developed an Archival Collection in High Altitude Medicine and Physiology in the main library at UCSD.

Advice to Postdoctoral Fellows
I would recommend spending some time if possible with one of the really prominent and successful physiologists in the hope that something will rub off.

2. West, J.B. Thoughts on the pulmonary blood-gas barrier. Am. J. Physiol.: Lung Cell. Mol. Physiol. 285: L501-L513, 2003.

3. Fu, Z., G.P. Heldt, and J.B. West. Thickness of the blood-gas barrier in premature and 1 day old newborn rabbit lungs. Am. J. Physiol.: Lung Cell. Molec. Physiol. 285: L130-L136, 2003.

4. Fu, Z., G. Heldt, and J.B. West. Increased fragility of pulmonary capillaries in newborn rabbit. Am. J. Physiol.: Lung Cell. Molec. Physiol. 284: L703-L709, 2003.

5. Prisk, G.K., H.J.B. Guy, J.B. West, and J.W. Reed. Validation of measurements of ventilation-to-perfusion ratio inequality in the lung from expired gas. J. Appl. Physiol. 94: 1186–1192, 2003.    

2. West, J.B. Discussion on cognitive function at high altitude. In: Wellcome Witnesses to Twentieth Century Medicine, Vol. 16: The MRC Applied Psychology Unit, edited by L.A. Reynolds and E.M. Tansey. London: Wellcome Trust, 2002, pp. 19-22.

3. West, J.B., and A. Readhead. Working at high altitude: medical problems, misconceptions, and solutions. ALMA Memos #477, www.alma.nrao.edu/ memos/html-memos/alma477/ memo477.pdf, 2003.

History Research:
1. West, J.B. George I. Finch and his pioneering use of oxygen for climbing at extreme altitudes. J. Appl. Physiol. 94: 1702-1713, 2003.