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My major contribution to the
XXXVth International Congress of Physiological Sciences (IUPS) was to
organize a symposium with Kenneth Gross, Roswell Park, Cancer Institute,
Buffalo, NY, entitled “Phylogeny and Ontogeny of the Renin-Angiotensin
System (RAS).” The aim of the symposium was to determine whether the
molecular and functional evolution of the RAS coincides with the structural
advancement of the kidney during these two time-dependent processes. The
symposium comprised speakers from Japan, France, and the USA and an audience
representing various countries. We had superlative presentations and
fruitful discussions. There were a number of excellent sessions on
comparative and evolutionary physiology at the XXXVth IUPS, attended by
physiologists from both non-mammalian and mammalian fields. The major aims of
comparative physiology, I believe, are to determine the evolution of
physiological functions and processes and their adaptation to changing
environments, and to find unique and sophisticated experimental models with
conservative traits that provide insight into underlying mechanisms. Indeed,
many experimental models using invertebrates and vertebrates, including
crustacean neuronal systems, insect Malpighian tubules, aglomerular kidneys,
frog skins, and toad bladders have contributed to the discovery of new
physiological concepts. Thus, the IUPS meetings provide ideal occasions for
scientists from a variety of physiological/biological disciplines to interact and exchange information. Likewise,
comparative physiologists/biologists can learn many advanced technological
techniques from studies done in mammalian species. I myself learned in the
early 1970s from Dr. Shu Chien, the President of the XXXVth IUPS, who was at
that time a professor of physiology at Columbia University College of
Physicians and Surgeons, how to measure blood volume using 131I as a marker.
Although application of the technique he was using in rats to the
measurement of blood volume in eels somewhat puzzled him, the method worked
beautifully.
We are lucky, and grateful to the program committee, to have had this
opportunity to express our thoughts on phylogenic and ontogenetic
development of the RAS. I was also very lucky because, in spite of the
change to daylight savings time on the day of our symposium, all the
speakers gathered on time! Indeed, I and another foreign speaker did not
know about the time change; but thanks to some unknown inspiration, we went
to the meeting room one hour earlier than the scheduled time. In this
regard, it would have been very helpful if a large notice had been placed on
the front entrance door, or if the security guards who were checking our
name tags had reminded us of the start of daylight savings time.
The XXXVth IUPS was a well organized and carefully thought-out meeting. The
program contained diverse subjects and yet was well integrated into the aim
of this congress, “from genomes to function.” For the last 30 years,
research in physiology disciplines has been significantly changing. Due to
the rapid introduction of molecular and cellular techniques into physiology,
due to increasing difficulty in undertaking whole animal/organ studies
because of the animal rights movement, and perhaps due to a tendency to
award more research grants for molecular/cellular mechanistic studies, the
direction and focus of our research have tended to shift to intracellular
signal transduction mechanisms, cell interactions, and gene regulation,
rather than studies on the control of complex biological systems. More
recently, however, the importance of integrated organ physiology and
physiological and pathological phenotypes linked to genetic information has
become the focus of attention. This rediscovery appears to be a consequence
of the facts that: 1) physiologists and physicians interested in the
regulation of bodily functions understand the critical role of genes and
their products in unraveling the underlying mechanisms of disease, and 2)
functional genomics elaborate a new understanding of the roles of genes in
cell and organ biology, and in disease processes. Such linkage of genomes
and gene products to proteomes and further linkage to “metabolomes” and
“physiomes” may be themes in the next IUPS meetings. In this context, it
would be important to identify global strategies to facilitate and link
functional genomics and proteomics to integrated physiology by organizing
national and international systems for research informatics and
intercommunication in terms of available resources, a standardized
methodology and terminology, and unified data acquisition and analyses.
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