Senior Physiologists' News
Jay Tepperman writes: “The last time I was asked to write this kind of letter I was a stripling of 80. Now, 10 years later, I am an authentic Senior Geezer, astonished by the realization that, in spite of poor vision and loss of hearing, my health is generally good. Thank you for the opportunity to send my greetings to the five or six people who still remember me.
“My wife, Helen, and I closed our lab at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse 19 years ago. For most of that time we had a lovely time watching the busy lives of our three children and five grandchildren, traveling widely in Europe, the Mediterranean area, the Middle East, enjoying our great and good friends in Upstate NY, and spending our summers in our waterfront house at Skaneateles Lake. Helen did a lot of volunteer work in a local Museum of Science and Technology, Literacy Volunteers, Peace Action etc. I, in contrast, was a cultural, scientific and political spectator sportsman.
“Our greatest pleasure, apart from the fact that we are still partners after nearly 61 years of marriage, has been our vicarious participation in the complex lives of our children and grandchildren who turned out to be an entertaining group to watch. Our daughter, Jean, is the Executive Director of a nonprofit children’s advocacy group and the editor of their publication. Our middle child, Kathy, is Professor of Biology at the University of Cincinnati. Our son, Jim, is doing very exciting work in the field of plant gene expression. I will spare you a detailed account of the achievement’s of our grandchildren for we have been known to be insufferably grandparently on that subject.
“About two years ago we decided we would like to live nearer our children so we sold our two houses in the Syracuse area and moved into a very attractive retirement residence in Oakland, CA which is only a mile from our son’s house and 15 minutes from one of our daughter’s in Berkeley. We have been at Lake Park for a year and a half and we are glad we came. Our other daughter who lives in Ohio visits frequently. We have a great apartment with a spectacular view, buffet at noon and sit down dinner at night, the Berkeley Rep Theater, Medical Grand Rounds at UCSF Medical School once a week and a temperature that fluctuates between 50 and 75 degrees F. Although we are often depressed by much of the domestic and international news, we are grateful for our good fortune.
“Some years ago Helen had your job of writing to the elderly. She joins me in sending you our greetings. I attended my first Physiological Society Meeting in 1941 and I was elected to membership in 1944. The lectures I hear at UCSF are a continuing reminder of the amazing advances that have occurred since then.”
Letters to Michael Barany
Jose Antunes-Rodrigues writes: “Sorry for the delay in responding to your request. Thank you for your kind wishes on behalf of the American Physiological Society and for your greetings on my 70th birthday. I feel both pleased and rewarded to reach this age in good health and become a Senior Physiologist.
“I consider myself a very lucky person. During my entire life I received God’s blessings: by having parents that gave me important guidance; at the University I decided to do science because the environment and the example of my mentor, professor Miguel Rolando Covian, student of Bernardo Houssay (Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine laureate in 1947). Finally, I was really lucky in 1964 to choose to do my postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. S. M. McCann, a Pioneer of Neuroendocrinology.
“During my second year as a medical student, I became interested in research of the central nervous control of water and salt metabolism in 1955, in the Laboratory of Prof. Covian, who had already shown that the hemidecorticate rat presented several endocrine changes. One of most remarkable effect was the change in the adrenal weight. With Dr. Covian, we investigated the role of the central nervous system in the control of salt intake. In his laboratory, systematic studies were undertaken to determine the effects of bilateral localized lesions of the rat hypothalamus on the free choice ingestion of tap water and 2% NaCl solution (Covian, MR and Antunes Rodrigues J. Specific alterations in sodium chloride intake after hypothalamic lesions in the rat. Am J Physiol. 205 (5):922-926, 1963).
“On the basis of Dr. McCann’s work on control of body fluids, I joined him in Philadelphia in 1964 for 18 months. In 1967, I returned to Dallas to stay for another year with him, when he had just returned from Europe where Bengt Andersson showed him goats with a cannulae in the third ventricule. Following hypertonic saline injection into the cannula these animals would drink in a reproducible manner in contrast to the poor reproducibility of saline injected into hypothalamic region as observed earlier. Dr. McCann suggested to me to try the cannulation of the 3rd ventricle of the rat, which was successful. We developed several lines of evidence indicating that the medial preoptic area, anterior lateral hypothalamus, subfornical organ, area anterior and ventral of the third ventricle (AV3V), habenula, stria medullaris, supraoptic nucleus, medial septal area and paraventricular nucleus are organized in a neural circuit involved in the regulation of water and sodium metabolism.
“We extended these studies to examine the role of the hypothalamic atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) and its interaction with neurohypophysial hormones, particularly oxytocin, in the control of body fluid homeostasis. It was generally believed that volume expansion acts directly on the heart by the stretch of atrial myocytes to increase the release of ANP leading to a reduction in the effective circulating blood volume. However, there is now compelling evidence that hypothalamic ANP/OT are also released during volume expansion through afferent inputs from baroreceptors to the brain. The role played by the brain ANP and its interaction with heurohypophysial hormones, particularly oxytocin, in the control of body fluid homeostasis was recently reviewed by our group (Physiol. Rev., 84, 169-208, 2004).
“What I’m doing now? After reaching the age of 70 and compulsory retirement from the School of Medicine of Ribeirao Preto, University of Sao Paulo, I was invited by the Department of Physiology to continue participating in the teaching activities (undergraduate and graduate students) and developing our research projects in my former laboratory.
“Words to pass on to our younger colleagues: in life we must take care of our professional vocation, to choose the profession that really will provide pleasure. To exert an activity that makes one happy. All young researchers must be aware of his responsibilities for the scientific and technological development of the country, to produce and administer new knowledge, and to help place the new knowledge at the disposal of our society, in order to improve the living conditions of our fellow man.
“In teaching and research, it is very important to have a spirit of contribution, mainly with youngest, and loyalty to humanism. Our scientific career has no value if it is carried out without humanity. They are no meanings to accumulate new knowledge if we do not have tolerance, charity and justice. We must always look for happiness; to be loyal with us and with the environment in which we live. Under these conditions the fruit of our research, and the love of the people with whom we deal daily, will make them to contribute to the construction of a better world. We cannot change all the structure of an Institution, of a University, or the Country, but we can indeed change the environment in which we live. We must always remember that science does not have country, but scientists do and they must work for advancement of their country.”
Lloyd L. Anderson writes: “Michael Bárány, asked me to reply as an elderly citizen (my 70th birthday, November 18, 2003) of the American Physiological Society. I do this with some trepidation since I am fully employed as a Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture, and Professor of Animal Science, College of Agriculture and Professor of Biomedical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Iowa State University, Ames, IA. My faculty appointment at Iowa State began July 1, 1958. Immediately after receiving the PhD degree in reproductive physiology, I was awarded a competitive Postdoctoral Fellowship from the USDHEW, PHS, National Institutes of Health that allowed me to continue studies on uterine regulation of corpus luteum function. This was soon followed by a Lalor Foundation Fellowship to continue studies at the Station de Recherches de Physiologie Animale, Centre National de Recherches Zootechniques, Institut National de la Recherché Agronomique, Jouy-en-Josas, France with Charles Thibault and FranÇios du Mesnil du Buisson. Using the newly developed procedure of hypophysectomy in the pig as a model, we carried out studies on the interaction of gonadotropic hormones and the uterus in the maintenance of luteal tissue in the ovary. It was a wonderful experience for me working with extra-ordinarily talented scientists focused on understanding the physiology of the central nervous system in regulating ovarian-uterine function in an important farm animal species. Upon return to Iowa State University, I exploited this new neurosurgical technique in the pig to further our understanding CNS/ovarian/uterine function and developed a supraorbital neurosurgical approach for hypophysectomy and hypophyseal stalk transduction in young growing calves and during different stages of pregnancy in beef cattle. These studies focused not only on physiology of CNS and reproductive function, but also on growth and development. In addition, we developed a neurosurgical technique of hypothalamic deafferentiation in pigs and cattle to study specific nuclei in hypothalamic regulation of gonadotropic-ovarian-uterine function in pigs and cattle, as well as determining regulation of growth hormone secretion in growth and development and the seasonal regulation of prolactin secretion.
“During these years with a 65% research and 35% teaching appointment, I have been blessed with a wonderful group of 63 graduate students and postdoctoral trainees who have won numerous University Research Excellence awards, Animal Science Department awards, and national and international awards. These students from across the USA and countries that include Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, PR China, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Georgia, Ghana, India, Inner Mongolia, Iran, Japan, México, Nigeria, South Korea, Taiwan, Spain, Switzerland and Yugoslavia have gone on to outstanding careers in academia and industry here and in their home countries. This I am extremely proud, for the success of your students is of greatest satisfaction to a mentor. I was very pleased to receive the Margaret Ellen White Graduate Faculty Award, Iowa State University, Fall Convocation, 2003 from the Graduate Student Senate.
“Although my major focus is on research in animal physiology, I have maintained a strong program in undergraduate and graduate teaching. During the last 34 years I have taught two sections each semester of an elective course for undergraduate students titled Laboratory Methods in Animal Reproduction. This has been most satisfying keeping in contact with the development of undergraduate students to achieve their goals.
“Recently my research has focused on understanding cellular secretion and membrane fusion of secretory vesicles in endocrine cells. In collaboration with my former student, Bhanu P. Jena, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI, using atomic force microscopy and immunogold labeling we have shown how live growth hormone-secreting cells from the pig’s pituitary gland, upon stimulation with a growth hormone-secretagogue, rapidly release growth hormone after transient fusion of the secretory vesicles to the plasma membrane. Understanding cellular secretion and membrane fusion is critical, since important cellular events such as ER-Golgi transport in protein maturation, plasma membrane recycling, cell division, sexual reproduction and the release of enzymes, hormones and neurotransmitters, all require fusion of opposing bilayers. Using transmission electron microscopy and immunogold antibody labeling, we found upon stimulation of growth hormone cells, the secretory vesicles containing the hormone rapidly ascend to the plasma membrane for transient fusion with the porosome to release the hormone, with the empty or partially empty vesicles then returning to the cytoplasm for recycling. Thus, the role of secretion and membrane fusion in health and disease is profound.
“On a personal note, my wife JaNelle is Director of Information Systems, Mary Greeley Medical Center, Ames, IA. Our sons, Marc and his wife Julie of Minneapolis have two daughters, Janessa (10 years old) and Jenna (5 years old) and Benjamin (6 months old) and James and his wife Tricia near Chicago have two sons, Nicholas (3 years old) and David (8 months old). They bring us great joy. Finally, I was privileged to deliver the Graduate College Commencement address Fall Semester 1999 at Iowa State University. It was indeed an honor to address this graduating class of future leaders with these summary remarks: ‘I am optimistic about the future, about people helping people that will make this world a better place. I believe we will have innovative technologies to meet food and fiber needs for an increasing world population. There are clouds on the horizon, however, that may dampen these aspirations for human progress. First is the issue of sovereignty of nations, and how ethnic, racial and social conflicts within and between sovereign nations are resolved by international organizations. Second, is how we treat all children from birth through teenage years to reach their full potential. Third, is the environment—whether in 2040 you will hear the chirping of frogs on a still summer night, whether cheetahs, rhinoceros, the great elephants, Siberian and Indian tigers move freely or merely are museum pieces. We are our brother’s keeper. Maintain a critical but optimistic outlook. You are indeed, the future leaders to bring to reality that golden era of progress. For all in this select group of high achievers, my congratulations and best wishes for a bright future on the road ahead.’”
Letter to Edgar Folk
David Richard Lincicome writes: “It certainly was a surprise to get your letter which was forwarded by the post office in Garrett Park, MD to my new address here in Roxbury, CT. My wife (Dr. Margaret A. Stirewalt) died last April, and since then my son (Dr. David Van Cleave Lincicome) has been urging me to move to Roxbury to be near him. In December, I made that decision after months of indecision. You ask what I have been doing. Well, to tell you that will be quite a story for I am a believer in keeping busy that organic computer we carry around.
“First off, I retired (emphasis on ‘re’) from my university chair in 1970 after: mentoring some 25 men and women to their doctoral or masters degrees; editing the first 37 volumes of the journal Experimental Parasitology from 1949-1976; founding the journal Virology (now in its 305+th volume); founding the review Journal Inter-national Review of Tropical Medicine and the Advances in Veterinary Science; and developing a research program on the molecular exchanges between a dependent cell and its organic environment. Diplomate status in the American Board of Microbiology came along during this period.
“Secondly, after re’tirement (re’ meaning having a new set of wheels) from active graduate teaching and research, life changed from the field of tropical medicine to that of animal science. Certification as a Professional Animal Scientist (PAS) then as a Diplomate in the American College of Animal Physiology (DACAP) followed shortly thereafter. 1978 saw the beginning of service to the US Department of Agriculture at its Experiment Station in Beltsville, MD, as a Guest Scientist which is enjoyed even today. Along the way genetic conservation became of intense interest and many years were spent conserving and publishing about Jacob and Tunis sheep, Pygmy goats and more recently, Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers. In 2002 the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy awarded me its 25th Anniversary Award for this work in genetic conservation.
“Just a few days before my 90th birthday, I submitted a manuscript on genetic conservation and its importance for dogs for publication, the most recent effort to keep that organic computer working!”
Letter to Donald Marsh
Clara M. Ambrus writes: “In response to your kind letter, here is a brief report of myself. I have retired from the Rosvell Park Cancer Institute but I continue as professor of Pediatrics and Ob/Gyn (perinatology) and pharmacology at the State University of New York at Buffalo Medical School. My headquarters are now at the Buffalo General Hospital. My research laboratory is also there and I combine to work and publish. Last year I published (or submitted for publication) four papers.
“My husband’s (Julian L. Ambrus) office is around the corner from me and one of my sons (Julian L. Ambrus, Jr.) who runs our rheumatology clinic and immunology research laboratory is in the next building. Once in a while we get together for lunch.
“My oldest daughter Madeline A. Lillie, is a pediatrics allergy-immunologist and her husband is a urologist. Both work in a close-by hospital and are both on the staff of our University. My only other child in town is a hospital administrator. Four more children are out of town. One of them is a physician on the Harvard faculty. We have eight grandchildren.
“My husband and I continue to run the family farm in Boston, NY (a 35-minute drive from the hospital). We have developed a technique to breed falcons in captivity. With permission of the conservation department, we periodically release young falcons to the wild. I feel that age is creeping up on me from periodic honors I receive. I recently was made foreign member of the National Academy of Science of Hungary, and last month I received the annual health care award from D’Youwille College. The Vatican made me a Lady Commander of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.
“The central theme of my work is physiology and pathophysiology of the blood coagulation and fibrinolysis system. I enjoy periodic contact with former PhD students of mine who are scattered all over the world. I continue to work; I try to be productive and useful and I certainly keep entertained.”