I have been a member of The American Physiological Society for over 50 years, and my best contribution to APS was to invent, and launch the section journal AJP: Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative. I was its first Editor in Chief, and introduced three special sections: Letters, Invited Opinions, and Modeling Methodology Forum (that included a home for formal statistics). I also founded the Annals of Biomedical Engineering for the BME Society, edited it for seven years, and became the third President of the Society. I also founded Endocrine Reviews for the Endocrine Society. All three journals are currently thriving.
The 'epochs" of my career, in sequence, unfolded as seven years in the Physiology Department at Harvard, ten years in the Physiology Department at Stanford (where I ultimately became Executive), ten years in the Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Southern California ( where I served as Director of an NIH -sponsored Medical Engineering Center), and 23 years at UCLA, (where for the initial seven of those years I was the first Director of the Crump Institute for Medical Engineering, the Ralph and Marjorie Crump Professor of Medical Engineering and also Professor of Chemical Engineering ), and for all 23 years also Professor of Medicine. From 1970 to 1997 I was a Consulting Principal Scientist to the ALZA Corporation, working on designs and clinical trials for novel, controlled delivery systems for therapeutic drugs, and for the past seven years I have been a member of the External Advisory Council of the NASA-affiliated National Space Biomedical Research Institute in Houston.
I retired from academic life in 2003. I am currently active as a Science Advisor to the John Douglas French Alzheimer's Foundation, with an office in their headquarters (email: gyates@jdfaf.org), and am continuing as a member of the External Advisory Council of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute/NASA, that is preparing medical support for the many and varied risk factors associated with astronauts in long-duration space flights, away from a near-earth orbit.
Traveling along my unguided career path "a seemingly random walk" I encountered and benefited from the experience and wisdom of many scientists, including: Cliff Barger (skills in gentle handling of chronic preparations in animals who remained unstressed), John Pappenheimer (introduction to transport phenomena), Bob Brennan (computer simulation of engineering control systems), Tom Sebeok (signs, symbols and significance), Arthur Iberall (a new physics for complex systems), Phil Anderson (needed balance between reductionism (analysis) and holism (synthesis) for many comprehensive descriptions in sciences, and showing that they are not technical inverses), Howard Pattee (information versus dynamics in biology), Bob Rosen (a mathematics for complexity), Alex Zaffaroni ( adding control to chemistry in pharmaceutical science), Walter Bortz (showing me that good medical science can be an effective basis for sensible public health policies), and Larry Young (countermeasures against risk factors for long-duration, human space flights). I owe them all (and many others, including students and post-docs) profound thanks for the joy and passion their insights have added to my professional life.
My current research focuses on three themes: 1) theories of senescence (why do we grow old and die?); 2) reinterpretation of subjective neo-Darwinian natural selection as objective dynamic filtering -in evolution, senescence and extinctions; 3) extension of Cannon's concept of homeostasis (the core theory of physiologists) as a new, physical stability and control theory for biology, that I call homeodynamics. I am actively publishing and presenting my work in each area.
As for advice for young scientists, I yield to the classic books by Ram�n y Cajal, Peter Medawar and Walter Cannon. I can add only that I notice certain common temperaments among my favorite colleagues in science: all have deep respect for rules of evidence, humility in the face of what they don't (yet) understand, courtesy toward colleagues and openness in discussions of their own past and present work. (That latter feature can be very difficult to sustain in a commercial world where non-scientific requirements for secrecy intrude.) I also notice that some colleagues are "splitters" (reductionistic analysis is their style) while others are "lumpers" who want the big picture with all its complexities and mysteries. They like synthesis. A few try to adopt both styles - at the risk of being, or being thought to be, dilettantes. My modest advice to young scientists is merely: Do what you want to do, and do it now, with whatever scientific style fits most happily.
Finally, though it may not be generalizable, I have found that a durable marriage (57 years and counting) with a person you like, admire and have much in common with (in my senior year of medical school I married one of my classmates - who happened to be the daughter of one of our faculty "greats" in internal medicine) greatly enhances the professional journey by providing a secure and emotionally fulfilling base. Our five children and eight grandchildren add a guarantee that I shall die a happy man.