Recipients of the Julius H. Comroe Jr. Distinguished Lectureship of the American Physiological Society Respiration Section
Current 2012 Awardee:
Nanduri Prabhakar, Ph.D.
University of Chicago
2012
Nanduri Prabhakar, Ph.D.
The Julius H. Comroe Jr Distinguished Lectureship of the American Physiological Society Respiration Section Nanduri Prabhakar, currently of the University of Chicago, received a PhD from Maharaja Sayajirao University, India and a DSc from Ruhr University, Germany; he has been a member of our Respiration Section since 1990. Through over 160 publications, Dr Prabhakar has made meritorious scientific contributions to understanding neural control of breathing. His research focuses on the neural regulation of autonomic functions and he is a leading authority in the field of oxygen sensing and physiological consequences of chronic hypoxia. A significant proportion of the adult human population and 50% of premature infants experience recurrent apneas due to sleep-disordered breathing. Individuals who experience this chronic intermittent hypoxia frequently develop serious morbidities including hypertension, ventilatory abnormalities, myocardial infarctions, metabolic syndrome and stroke. Prabhakar, research trainees and colleagues use rodent and cell culture models to identify the signaling pathways and molecular mechanisms underlying morbidity associated with chronic intermittent hypoxia.
Dr Prabhakar was named the inaugural Director of the Institute for Integrative Physiology (IIP), which was created in 2010 at the University of Chicago. The following is his description of the inception of the IIP (from http://integrativephysiology.uchicago.edu/, 3-7-2012). The revolutionary advances in cell and molecular biology as well as in genetic engineering in the past half-a-century have provided spectacular insights into our understanding of structure and function of biological systems at the molecular, cellular and sub-cellular levels. Shifting the research emphasis from organ (or from the whole body levels) to cellular and molecular physiology has resulted in a rapid decline in research on physiology at the systems level. While the reductionist approaches are powerful, they have brought into focus a major gap that has developed between our understanding of the molecular/cellular alterations and their impact at the organ and/or whole animal level. Integrative physiology, on the other hand, embraces the concepts of cell/molecular physiology, biochemistry and applies these concepts and experimental approaches to understand the function at the level of whole animal or organ.
2011
Jahar Bhattacharya, Columbia Univ.
Jahar Bhattacharya, MD, DPhil, is Professor of Medicine at Columbia University and a member of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. He began his medical career as a cardiology resident in New Delhi in 1968 and began graduate work at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 1970. In 1976, he became a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, after which he briefly joined the faculty at UCSF and then Columbia University, where he has been since 1985. That same year he was awarded a NIH Research Career Development Award, which began an uninterrupted history of NIH funding, including a NIH MERIT Award in 1998.
Dr. Bhattacharya’s research interests include regulation of lung microvascular barrier properties in inflammation and sepsis, second messenger signaling in lung endothelial cells in situ, cell-cell communication in lung inflammation and sepsis, regulation of alveolar surfactant secretion, and formation and clearance of alveolar wall liquid. Dr. Bhattacharya directs The Lung Biology Laboratory at Columbia University, which specializes in single and 2-photon laser scanning microscopy of the intact lung. His research uses real-time imaging to understand molecular mechanisms underlying lung injury. Ongoing projects are investigating the mitochondrial regulation of inflammatory exocytosis, 3-D alveolar geometry during lung inflation, the role of focal adhesion proteins in endothelial barrier enhancement, and the role of second messengers in alveolar-capillary crosstalk.
2010
Eugene Nattie, Dartmouth Univ.
2009
Michael Matthay, UCSF
2008
Stella Kourembanas, Harvard Univ.
2007
Brigid Hogan, Duke Univ.
2006
Joe G.N. Garcia, Univ. of Chicago Med. Ctr.
2005
Gabby Haddad, Albert Einstein Coll. of Med.
2004
Jerome Dempsey, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
2003
John B. West, Univ. of California, San Diego
2002
Norman Staub, Stinson Beach, CA
2001
John E. Remmers, Univ. of Calgary
2000
John A. Clements, UCSF
1999
Richard C. Boucher, Univ. of N.Carolina, Chapel Hill
1998
John M. Harlan, Univ. of Washington
1997
Bernard C. Rossier, Univ. of Lausanne
1996
Marlene Rabinovitch, Univ. of Toronto
1995
Jack L. Feldman, Univ. of California, Los Angeles
1994
Jeffrey A. Whitsett, Univ. of Cincinnati