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Walter Boron
Walter Boron, Chairman and Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at
Case Western Reserve University, succeeded Stanley Schultz as the Editor
of News in Physiological Sciences on July 1, 2003. (With the
August issue, News in Physiological Science became Physiology.)
Dr. Boron was born in Elyria, Ohio, where he received his education
through high school. He attended Saint Louis University, where he earned
an AB in chemistry summa cum laude in 1971. Dr. Boron then
entered the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University
in St. Louis, where he did his graduate work under the tutelage of Prof.
Albert Roos in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics. Boron
received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees in 1977. After remaining with Prof.
Roos for one year as a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Boron moved as a
postdoctoral fellow to the Department of Physiology at Yale in 1978, and
joined the laboratory of Prof. Emile Boulpaep. In 1980, Dr. Boron joined
the faculty of that department. He was promoted to Associate Professor
in 1984, and Professor in 1987. Between 1989 and 1998, he served three
3-year terms as chairman of the Department. In 2007, he left Yale to
assume the Chairmanship at Case.
As a graduate student, using microelectrodes to measure intracellular pH
(pHi) in squid giant axons and giant-barnacle muscle fibers, Dr.
Boron was one of the first to monitor transient changes in pHi.
With Paul De Weer, Boron observed and elucidated the pHi changes
caused by applying and withdrawing NH3/NH+4
or CO2/HCO–3.
The result was the introduction of the NH+4
prepulse technique, which is still widely used to acid load cells, as well
as the first dynamic evidence that cells actively regulate their pH. The
work that Boron did with De Weer and with John Russell was pivotal in the
initial description of the Na+-driven Cl-HCO3
exchanger, the first acid-base transporter implicated in pHi
regulation. As a postdoctoral fellow, Boron, together with Emile Boulpaep,
discovered the electrogenic Na/HCO3 cotransporter, which plays a
central role in HCO–3
reabsorption in the renal proximal tubule.
As an independent investigator at Yale, Dr. Boron
continued to elucidate mechanisms of pHi regulation, and has more
recently focused in three related areas: the molecular physiology of Na+-coupled
HCO–3
transporters, CO2 permeability, and CO2 sensors.
Regarding general principles of pHi regulation, Dr. Boron and his
coworkers were among the pioneers in using pH-sensitive dyes for monitoring
pHi. They also developed now-standard paradigms for measuring the
pHi dependencies of intracellular buffering power and the rates
of acid-base transporters. By applying these paradigms to serum-starved
cells studied in the presence vs the absence of HCO–3,
they disproved the theory that growth factors act by raising pHi.
Another product of this line of research was the discovery that, for most
cells, the Na-H exchanger is rather active at the resting pHi.
Regarding the molecular physiology of HCO–3
transporters, his group cloned the cDNA for the first Na+-coupled
HCO–3
transporter—the renal electrogenic Na/HCO3 cotransporter. They
also cloned and characterized the electroneutral Na/HCO3
cotransporter and the Na+-driven Cl-HCO3 exchanger,
and continue to elucidate mechanisms of action and structure-function
relationships for all of the above transporters. Regarding CO2
permeability, the work of Dr. Boron’s group on isolated-perfused gastric
glands and colonic crypts led to the discovery of gas-impermeable membranes.
Most recently, Boron’s group has shown that water channels, such as AQP1,
are permeable to CO2 gas. His group also developed a novel
rapid-mixing technique for making out-of-equilibrium CO2/HCO–3
solutions with virtually any combination of [CO2], [HCO–3]
and pH. This approach, applied to the renal proximal tubule, has recently
led to the first physiological description of a CO2 sensor.
Dr. Boron has been an active member of APS since 1981. In the Renal
Section, he served as Program Representative (1984 – 1987) and later as
Chair of the Renal Section (1990 – 1993). The Berliner Lectureship was
established during his tenure as Chair. Dr. Boron served on the APS Council
(1995 – 1998) and then as President-Elect/President/Past-President (1998 –
2001). The Strategic Planning Meeting at Kiawah Island was held during his
presidency. With the Society of General Physiologists, Dr. Boron served as
Treasurer (1988 –1991).
Dr. Boron’s editorial experience includes membership on the Editorial
Boards of the American Journal of Physiology - Renal, Fluid and
Electrolyte Physiology (1984 – 1988) and the Journal of Physiology
(London) (1985 – 1992). With the Annual Review of Physiology, he
was a Special Section Editor of volume 48 in 1986. With Physiological
Reviews he was Associate Editor (Jan. 1, 1985 – Dec. 31, 1990) and then
Editor (Jan. 1, 1994 – Dec. 31, 1999). Finally, together with Prof. Emile
Boulpaep, Boron edited a new, comprehensive textbook for medical and
graduate students, Medical Physiology. A Cellular and Molecular Approach,
which was published by Saunders in 2003.
Dr. Boron was a Searle Scholar from 1981 – 1984. He won the Young
Investigator Award of the American Society of Nephrology and the American
Heart Association in 1986. For excellence in teaching at Yale, Boron
received the Charles W. Bohmfalk Teaching Award in 1993. That same year, he
received the Robert F. Pitts Lectureship Award from the Renal Commission of
the International Union of Physiological Sciences. In 1998, he received the
Carl W. Gottschalk Distinguished Lectureship Award from the Renal Section of
the American Physiological Society. That same year, he was also elected a
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr.
Boron’s research is funded by the National Institutes of Health and the
Office of Naval Research. In 2002, Dr. Boron received a MERIT award from the
NIDDK.
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