Respiratory Neurobiology: Physiology and Clinical Disorders, Part II: Volume 189

About

Dr. Robert Chen received MA and medical degrees (MBBChir) from the University of Cambridge and M.Sc. from the University of Toronto. He undertook Neurology residency at the Western University and fellowship at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. He is currently Professor of Medicine (Neurology) at the University of Toronto the Catherine Manson Chair in Movement Disorders Senior Scientist at the Krembil Brain Institute a full member of the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Toronto Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences and Associate Editor for Movement Disorders. His research interests include human motor physiology brain plasticity and understanding the pathophysiology and development of new treatments for movement disorders such as Parkinsons disease and dystonia. He has published over 350 research papers with Google Scholar H-index of over 100. Dr. Guyenet is a neuroscientist Professor of Pharmacology with a career spanning 42 years on the faculty of the University of Virginia (UVa) School of Medicine (Charlottesville VA USA). Born in France he received his undergraduate education in the basic sciences at Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris (1967-1971). He earned a Ph.D. in neuropsychopharmacology from College de France Paris under the direction of College de France Professor Jacques Glowinski where his scientific career was launched (1972-1975). This was followed by postdoctoral studies in neurophysiology at Yale University (1976-1978) mentored by Dr. GK Aghajanian. Dr. Guyenet joined the faculty of the University of Virginia School of Medicine Department of Pharmacology in 1978 pursuing a basic research focus on the autonomic nervous system and breathing. His research is a branch of Integrative Neuroscience a discipline that seeks to understand how the brain processes specific types of information. The laboratory studies how the mammalian brain regulates respiration and blood pressure two physiological processes that are dysfunctional in highly prevalent diseases (hypertension obesity apneic syndromes heart failure etc.). Continuously supported by the National Institutes of Health Heart Lung and Blood Institute his research program has contributed to seminal progress in the field. A key advance has been the characterization of a lower brainstem nucleus that senses pH and maintains blood CO2 constant by adjusting lung ventilation (the retrotrapezoid nucleus). This work has given a new impetus to the study of central respiratory chemoreception a field that is rapidly growing in the US and elsewhere. Dr. Guyenet and collaborators have published 243 articles in refereed scientific journals including high impact publications such as Science Nature and Nature Neuroscience. His influence in the field is reflected by his scientific impact metrics (h-index 99; 28000 citations). Dr. Guyenet and his lab have received several awards including the NIH-HLBI Merit Award the Carl Ludwig Distinguished lecture of the American Physiological Society 2008 and UVa Distinguished Scientist Award 2011. Additionally Dr. Guyenet received the Edlich-Henderson Inventor of the Year Award (1996) along with colleagues J. Jagger R. Pearson and J. Brand granted in recognition of three patents two of which were successfully commercialized. Along with research teaching and mentoring has been integral to Dr. Guyenets academic contributions. Over four decades Dr. Guyenet mentored 15 PhDs and 24 postdoctoral scholars many of whom have faculty positions in the US and elsewhere. He has been rewarded many times over by medical students for his teaching contributions including the Medical School Student Basic Sciences Teaching Awards (9 times) and the UVa Medical School Award for Excellence in Teaching (1995 2003). Dr. Guyenet is especially grateful to his department chairmen Drs. J. Larner J. Garrison and D. Bayliss for their unflagging support and the freedom to seek his own path. Most importantly he acknowledges the immense debt he owes to his enthusiastic hard-working and talented collaborators. Finally Dr. Guyenet thanks profusely everyone who has contributed to these twin volumes on Respiratory Neurobiology and hopes that the final product will be helpful to clinicians and basic scientists alike as a scholarly reference or hopefully as an inspiration to move the field to new heights.