Knut Schmidt-Nielsen was President of the IUPS from 1980 to 1986. He is the founding editor of News in Physiological Sciences (now known as Physiology). He is regarded as the father of comparative physiology and integrative biology.
The programme of our virtual congress 2022 (organized together with the Chinese Association of Physiological Sciences) has many highlights. Among them are the named IUPS lectures. The Schmidt-Nielsen-Lecture is awarded to an outstanding physiologist in the field of comparative physiology, nominated by the IUPS commission “Comparative Physiology”. This year, the Schmidt-Nielsen-Lecture will be given by Prof Roger S Seymour. Roger S. Seymour is currently Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Adelaide in Australia
He grew up in the United States and obtained a PhD in Zoology in 1972 at the University of California, Los Angeles, with a thesis on energetics and respiration of dormant desert toads. Then he moved to Australia, eventually becoming a citizen, working first at Monash University until 1975 and then at Adelaide University
Following the footsteps of the inspiring environmental physiologists George Bartholomew, Knut Schmidt-Nielsen, Per Scholander and Kjell Johansen, his research has been an eclectic mix of studies involving how whole organisms interact with their environments, particularly unusual species in exotic world locations. His major contributions are in the areas of respiration, metabolism and energetics of vertebrate embryos, cardiovascular and respiratory physiology of vertebrates and insects, comparative thermoregulation and gas exchange in heat-producing flowers, and the relationships between the structure and function of vertebrate cardiovascular systems. Recently he studies evolutionary physiology of extinct animals such as dinosaurs and human ancestors, in which blood pressures and flow rates can be inferred from fossil bones.
His lecture is entitled: Paleophysiology: How fossil bone foramina can measure metabolic intensity of extinct vertebrates and brain perfusion of human ancestors
We are looking forward to his lecture on May 9th, 2022!
Interested? You can still register for the congress