News From Senior Physiologists

As originally printed in The Physiologist, 
April 2001, Volume 44, Number 2
Page 92

Letter to Michael Bárány
Henry Brown writes: “I was very pleased to receive your greeting on my eightieth birthday and to be asked to write something for The Physiologist. The most impressive thing to me in my career has been the incredible generosity of the American people in giving both for public and private funding of my education and research. Almost as impressive was the observation that my experience was far from unique. In my own case, starting with World War II, the Navy sent me to medical school, paying for my last two years. The Navy then gave me wonderful opportunities while in service including a stint with the Marines, senior medical officer on a carrier [heady stuff for a lieutenant (jg)], then a time with Commander Clive McCay, Professor of Nutrition at Cornell. (known for showing that not overeating increased longevity as well as decreasing incidence of chronic disease) who was then at the Nutrition Facility of the Naval Medical Research Institute at Bethesda. During the Korean War Era, I was called back and served in the Metabolic Research Unit of the Oakland Naval Hospital. The GI Bill started me on my surgical training at the University of Pennsylvania. Following I had a Runyon Cancer Fellowship in England at Cambridge with Fred Sanger sequencing pig and sheep insulin with a then-revolutionary methodology. Then there were 10 years at the University of Wisconsin in surgery with a true gentleman, Professor Erwin Schmidt, also both a fine scholar and a skilled surgeon. He was one of the founding members of The American Board of Surgery in about 1937. While at Wisconsin I received fellowship and NIH, and other private and public funding for my research on protein metabolism and metabolic derangements in liver failure and hepatic coma.

“I remained at Wisconsin until Dr. Schmidt’s death when I came to Boston to work with Dr. Bill McDermott on problems of liver metabolism in the Harvard Surgical Unit at Boston City Hospital. At the time we were treating a large population with alcohol related cirrhosis and pancreatitis. This research done on the wards and in the Sears Surgical Research Laboratory of Boston City Hospital, too, was possible only because of large and generous NIH public funding supplemented by private funding.

“I came on board as a member of the American Physiological Society relatively late in my career at the age of 47 through the kindness and good offices of Professors Charles and Mary Elizabeth Tidball then at George Washington University. Membership in the Society has been one of the very nice things that has happened to me in academia and much appreciated since I was an outsider in the Department of Surgery. For the past two years I have been honored to be Chair of the Interest in History Group of the Society.

“I continue to be in the Division of Plastic Surgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital with writing and walking about occupying much of my time, even though I see an occasional patient, take part in rounds, and am a member of the Wound Healing Laboratory. For several years until this year I taught anatomy to the Harvard freshmen medical students.

“One of the puzzles of my surgical career has been the unpredictability of motor and sensory deficits following neck dissections for head and neck cancer. After several years of studying and pondering, in 1988 I published in the Annals of Surgery my results from clinical material as well as from the anatomy laboratory but felt results still were not definitive. So, that year I spent part of a sabbatical to continue study of this problem at the University of Buenos Aires with Professor Luciano Poitevin who had done very good work in this area and who was both in that Anatomy Department and Chair of the Department of Orthopedics. I concluded that year at the University of Paris Anatomy Institute with Professor Genvieve Hidden who at the time was Chair of Anatomy in addition to being a respected surgeon. Since then my patient wife, Julie, and I have returned to Paris for two to three weeks twice yearly to continue that study. It is a bit taxing for her to leave our 12 grandchildren and one great grandchild, all of whom with our five children are the light of our lives. The French, nevertheless, have been both very generous and cordial in helping me. After small publications and oral presentations at the Societe Antomique de Paris, in April of 2000 I was finally was able to put it all together to publish a more definitive account in the Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine: “The Anatomy and Blood Supply of the Lower Four Cranial and Cervical Nerves; Relevance to Surgical Neck Dissection.”

“Anyway, my health has remained relatively good so as to be able still to donate blood a couple of times a year and to jog very geriatrically every morning three to four miles along the beautiful Charles River a bit before 4:00 am or 5:00 am depending on what days are for rounds and what days are for laboratory meetings.

“Well, this has been quite an ego trip, but unfortunately I am told that, as one reaches one’s dotage, this even occurs more commonly. I send my best wishes to you and all of my colleagues in this wonderful American Physiological Society.”

Letter to Eugene Renkin
Howard Bern writes: “Please excuse the almost year-long delay in this reply to your kind greeting and request of last year (2000), my 80th year. I have had some health problems but seem to have rebounded well enough. I “retired” at age 70, but for the last decade I have served Berkeley and my department pro bono as a member of an Academic Senate committee, in the supervision of Master’s and undergraduate research students, serving on doctoral committees, sponsoring postdoctorals, participating in seminar courses, going to meetings, giving occasional lectures (but many fewer by my decision than I once did), serving on national and international committees of one sort or another, etc. 
“Now almost 81, in 2001 I shall complete sponsorship of my last graduate student and my last postdoctoral, again by my decision. My department and the Cancer Research Laboratory continue to make me feel thoroughly at home in the milieu in which I have been immersed for the past 52+ years. Last fall I participated in the 50th anniversary of the unconstitutional University of California “loyalty oath.” Along with extant former University presidents, a small number of resisters also spoke, recalling the intensely emotional atmosphere of the time.

“I continue to be viewed as a senior comparative and tumor endocrinologist. I am still active professionally, publishing an occasional research paper. A year or so ago, my 30-year commitment with my research colleague, Dr. Richard S. Nishioka, to physiological studies on the caudal neurosecretory system of fishes (“urophysiology”) was revived by the discovery by the laboratory of Professor Hubert Vaudry at Rouen of the gene for the urotensin II precursor in mammalian (including human) motoneurons. The gene of the receptor for this peptide in mammalian tissue has also been characterized recently by several groups.

“My current professional interests are focused in three areas. For 40 years I taught a course in The Biology of Chemical Mediation (rather than Endocrinology) based on the stance that chemical communication was an essential characteristic of life. This point of view has been skillfully elaborated independently by Arnold De Loof of Belgium, writing on “What is Life?” on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Erwin Schrödinger’s book of the same name. Schrödinger’s landmark presentation can be considered the philosophical foundation of today’s molecular biology, at least of the reductionist type. De Loof’s approach, which contributed to his being awarded a “nobeloid” prize by the Flemish Academy of Science and the King of Belgium in 2000, is that of an integrative, organismal biologist, a position which I certainly appreciate. It gave me great pleasure to chair the international committee that selected Professor De Loof for this important award.

“A second professional area of interest derives from my laboratory’s earlier studies, initiated in the 1960s with my Japanese postdoctoral associate, Noboru Takasugi, later president of Yokohama City University and present chair of the Yokohama Board of Education. We used a neonatal mouse model and established that early exposure to sex hormones during a critical period of development permanently and irreversibly altered the reproductive tract, among other systems as later work has shown. These studies preceded the discovery of the long-term consequences, including vaginal cancer, by my later co-editor, Arthur Herbst, of prenatal exposure to diethylstilbestrol in the human. With the present concern regarding environmental endocrine disruptors, our initial studies have become recognized for their relevance, and I continue to participate in meetings and offer counsel in this fast-moving area of research.

“A third area of active concern reflects my identification with comparative endocrinology, especially the endocrinology of fishes. We are studying the physiology of IGF in fishes and the role of IGF-binding proteins in fish growth. Our experimental animal currently is the tilapia Oreochromis mossambicus, a hardy euryhaline species with worldwide tropical and subtropical distribution (including southern California’s salt lakes and drainage ditches!). There are two papers in press on this subject, and my last graduate student is working in this area.

“I cannot see myself, even now, entirely detached from the research areas I have described. I maintain contact with enough colleagues intramurally and extramurally to support a degree of intellectual alertness. In Japan, France, and Britain, I have continuing collaborations.

“I find myself continually surprised and excited that research areas and initiatives that even I considered passé undergo revival in the hands of younger scientists with new expertise. If the research area does not die, the former researcher has some intellectual raison d’être, and this is a continuing source of pleasure and allows a feeling of sustained involvement. However, the greatest source of satisfaction is to watch the success and increasing recognition of the PhD students (around 45) and postdoctoral associates (around 100) I have had.

“They remain an essential part of my life and of my interactions. They keep me young!”

Thomas K. Akers writes: “Thank you for the Birthday Greetings. I’ve been a fan of the “News from Senior Physiologist” for years. In 1992 after three trips to the ICU for coronary problems, I decided to de-stress and retire from the University and Medical School. I was Chair of the Physiology Department and became Professor Emeritus in June 1992. Nick Sperelakis had asked me to contribute a chapter on “The Physiological Effects of High Pressure on Cell Function” for the book he was editing entitled Cell Physiology: A Source Book. So the first thing I did after moving to Port Angeles, WA was to set up my computer and hook up to the internet for library contact and write the chapter. The book was published in 1995 followed by a revised second edition in 1998. I also completed two manuscripts for publication of the last research I worked on.  In the meantime I made a connection with the local college to teach a course in physiology for seniors in the community. No test, no grades---pure heaven!! The first course was in winter quarter 1992 entitled “An Owners Manual for the Human Bod.,” It was well-received and led to a second course “Mind, Brain, Body, Spirit” in spring 1993 and then a course called “Alternative Health Care Strategies,” a comparative study of various approaches to good health including allopathic, osteopathic, homeopathic, chiropractic, naturo-pathic, ayurveda, chi gong, acupuncture, reflexology, rolfing, Alexander technique, yoga, herbals, and nutrition. These courses proved to be so popular and so much fun that I found myself teaching each quarter until winter 98-99 when I had added a Elderhostel course to the mix and finally needed a sabbatical. Thus, I have stopped for the time being. I’ve also been active in the arts (I’ve painted since 1948). I joined an art league so as to have a gallery for show and sell of my paintings, and was a founding member of the “Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts.” From 1993 to the present, I was President. I also worked with the Port Angeles Community Players as Light and Sound technician for five years and acted in eight plays to date. Great fun!!!

“To my younger colleagues: INFORM THE GENERAL PUBLIC ABOUT SCIENCE AND, IN PARTICULAR, PHYSIOLOGY in plain English (we all use too much jargon). After all, they support us with their tax money. A good way to do this is through the media, be friends with newspaper and TV reporters; they’ll call you for information when they have a science story; give it to them or refer to a scientist who knows things you don’t. We’re all specialists these days. Many universities have radio stations, all looking to fill airtime. I had a half-hour weekly radio show called “Science Now” on KFJM AM for 155 weeks. It consisted of a simple format: introduction, news tidbits (culled from Fed. Proc., The Physiologist, Science News, etc.), station identification, and introduce a guest scientist. Talk to your fellow scientist to go on the radio and talk about their favorite subject (their research). Always paraphrase their answers in plain English to be sure you and your listeners understand. Sign. That easy.  Well, I could go on but I’ll stop. I know that the public appreciated the radio science show from all the letters I got.” 

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