AJP-Lung at AUA in Palo Alto this week!

Please join Dr. Sadis Matalon, Dr. Charles Emala and Dr. YS Prakash at the 61st Annual Meeting of the Association of University Anesthesiologists this week!

Dr. Matalon will be moderating a Plenary Sesstion on Lung Injury, Remodeling and Repair featuring the esteemed panel of Dr. Brant Michael Wagener (UAB); Jae-Woo Lee (UCSF); Dr. Charles Serhan (Harvard) and Dr. Daryl J. Kor (Mayo).

Friday, April 25th, 2014
1:00 - 3:00 pm
Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge
Stanford Medical School
Palo Alto, California

Awardees of the inaugural Hermann Rahn Award for Excellence in Pulmonary Research

Dr. Sadis Matalon has established the Hermann Rahn Award for Excellence in Pulmonary Researchfor outstanding contributions by junior members of the APS to Pulmonary Biology. Three awards will be distributed during the Respiration Dinner at the 2014 Experimental Biology meeting at San Diego. The purpose of this award is to enhance participation of pulmonary scientists and physicians to the EB meeting and improve the quality and impact of the Respiration Section.

Dr. Hermann Rahn (1912–1990) received his Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Rochester (1933) and began teaching physiology at the University of Rochester in 1941. He collaborated with Dr. Wallace O. Fenn and Dr. A.B. Otis to lay the foundation of respiratory gas exchange and respiratory mechanics. Some of their seminal findings were published in the American Journal of Physiology (Rahn H. A concept of mean alveolar air and the ventilation-blood flow relationships during pulmonary gas exchange. Am J Physiol 158: 21–30; 1949; Rahn H, Otis AB, Chadwick LE, Fenn WO. The pressure-volume diagram of the thorax and lung. Am J Physiol 146: 161–178, 1946; . Rahn H, Fenn WO. A graphical analysis of the respiratory gas exchange. Washington, DC: Am. Physiol. Soc., 1955). Their work fostered the field of aerospace medicine and advances in pressure breathing and understanding of acclimatization to altitude. The O₂-CO₂and pressure-volume diagrams are in every respiration book and taught to medical students.

Dr. Rahn joined the University at Buffalo in 1956 as the Lawrence D. Bell Professor and Chair of the Department of Physiology. He trained and collaborated with a large number of outstanding physician scientists including Dr. Claude Lenfant (who became the first director of the National Heart. Lung and Blood Institute), Dr. Leon Farhi and Dr. John West. Please see the outstanding article by Dr. West on the “Physiological legacy of the Fenn, Rahn and Otis School, Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol 303: L845–L851, 2012; (http://ajplung.physiology.org/content/ajplung/303/10/L845.full.pdf). Dr. Rahn was the 36^th President of the American Physiological Society (1963-1964) and a member of the National Academy of Science and is well known to ornithologists for his work on avian eggs. In collaboration with Dr. O. Douglas Wangensteen and Dr. Charles V. Paganelli, he developed a series of equations to describe the interrelation-ships of bird size, egg size, incubation period, shell structure, and energy and water use as well as the diffusion of gases across the egg shell.

After reviewing numerous qualified abstracts (eligibility is also predicated upon submission and presentation of an abstract to the Experimental Biology meeting on one of the Respiration Section topics), the Awards Committee has determined the awardees of the inaugural Hermann Rahn Award for Excellence in Pulmonary Research:

Dr. Fiona Murray, of the University of Aberdeen, for Abstract #1491: Interleukin-33 in pulmonary arterial hypertension: a role in disease pathogenesis? 

Dr. Megha Talati, of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, for Abstract #4357: Mutant BMPR2 expression in Cardiomyocytes Results in an Altered Hypertrophic Response 

Dr. Rajasingh Johnson, of the University of Kansas Medical Center, for Abtract #6336: Combinatorial treatment with epigenetic modifiers inhibits thrombin-induced eNOS/RhoA signaling and restores AJ integrity.

Please join me in congratulating these individuals on their accomplishments. We hope that they will submit their outstanding manuscripts to the American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology (http://ajplung.physiology.org/)

Quantum dot technology reveals involvement of endothelial NOX2 in VCAM expression

Please see the fascinating article by Dr. Orndorff et al. published in AJP-Lung and selected for inclusion in APS Select.  Dr. Orndorff and her collaborators attached antibodies against VCAM and PECAM to fluorescent quantum dots to pinpoint the sequence of events leading to the sticking and activated neutrophils on endothelial cells.  Their data show for the first time that in LPS induced injury reactive species generated by endothelial NOX2  (in addition to neutrophil NOX2) upregulate VCAM  causing neutrophil to stick to endothelial cells and produce reactive intermediates which damage endothelial cells.  Please see the highly informative (and colorful) figures in this article here.  The authors should be congratulated for their highly innovative study.

It is fair to say that there is still some controversy as to the extent to which neutrophils contribute to the pathogenesis of ARDS-type injury in both humans and animals.  Of note, Dr. Gessner et al. showed that exposure of mice to oxidant gases damaged neutrophils decreasing their ability to generate reactive intermediates in their June 2013 article. Please also see the review by Drs. William and Chambers on “The mercurial nature of neutrophils: still an enigma in ARDS?” recently published in AJP-Lung.

Where to submit your scientific manuscript on Chlorine, Ammonia, or Bromine

Deciding where to submit a pulmonary physiology paper on Chlorine, Ammonia, or Bromine?

AJP-Lung’s Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Sadis Matalon, has wide expertise in oxidant gas and would be a great scientist to manage the peer review of your paper.  

Find out more about his work and UAB's Pulmonary Injury and Repair Center in this UAB news article.

The dual nature of murine and human alveolar macrophages

In an outstanding review which just appeared in AJP-Lung articles in press, Drs. Neil R. Aggarwal , Landon S. King, and Franco Rafael D'Alessio discuss the role of alveolar macrophages in the initiation of the inflammatory response as well as the resolution of injury and enhancement of repair in animal models and patients with Acute Lung Injury. 

A very valuable aspect of this review is the comparison and contrast of the regulation of human and murine alveolar macrophages. As my grandfather (or grandmother) used to say “a picture is worth a thousand words).  Some of the most important conclusions of this review are summarized in their Figure 1.  This is a “must read” review for scientists interested in macrophage immunobiology.

AJP-Lung’s new blog: Where the Experts Comment on the Most Interesting Respiratory Research and News

Here at the American Physiological Society’s American Journal of Physiology - Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology™, we’re excited to be among the first to know about the most interesting respiratory research.  We’ll be offering you a heads up on the most exciting and groundbreaking lung physiology discoveries.  Our Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Sadis Matalon, our 9 illustrious Associate Editors and our numerous authors have the expertise to give you trustworthy commentary and analysis on research and the real story on breaking respiratory news.  

We’d like to introduce you to respiratory scientists doing important work and to be a place for the pulmonary community to convene and converse online. 

If you want to find out more about what’s happening with AJP-Lung, we’ll be posting on events we’re attending, updates on our staff, and awards.  We’ll answer your questions on submitting papers and reviews and anything else you might want to know about our journal.    

AJP-Lung readers, authors, pulmonary physiologists, scientists, researchers, and the lung community:  check back with us often – we’ll be posting frequently.   

 

About the bloggers: 

Dr. Sadis Matalon, PhD, DrSc (Hon.) is the Editor-in-Chief of AJP-Lung.  He is a Distinguished Professor, Alice McNeal Chair and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.  He is also the Director of the Pulmonary Injury and Repair Center in the School of Medicine.  Dr. Matalon became the Editor-in-Chief for AJP-Lung in 2012.  For more about Dr. Matalon, a more detailed biography can be found here:

I’m Emily Sher, the Editorial Assistant for AJP-Lung.  I have a BA in English Literature from Trinity College and love to write about things that really matter.   I don’t think it’s too dramatic to say that in an increasingly hazardous, polluted environment, being in the know about respiratory science could save your life.