Robert Pitts helped provide a fundamental understanding of the way the kidneys excreted acidic wastes and thereby maintained the body’s delicate biochemical balance between acidic and alkaline states. He is also known for his work on the organization of the Respiratory Center.
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 Robert Pitts lecture is awarded to an outstanding physiologist nominated by the IUPS commission “Secretion/ Absorption”. This year, the Robert Pitts lecture will be given by Prof Alicia McDonough. She joined the University of Southern California School faculty in 1981 where she is a Professor of Physiology.
Early on, her research focused on the assembly of Na,K-ATPase (sodium pump) subunits and then the mechanisms controlling Na,K-ATPase isoform function, and regulation across organ systems including cardiac muscle during heart failure, skeletal muscle by potassium status, and brain during development. Subsequently, the McDonough laboratory turned their focus to molecular mechanisms responsible for sodium, potassium and volume homeostasis. Dr. McDonough and her colleagues have pinpointed how sodium retaining stimuli increase renal sodium transport and how the resultant hypertension drives compensatory natriuretic responses. Recently, the McDonough lab profiled transporters in female vs male kidneys which defined significant differences and their physiological consequences. Dr. McDonough truly enjoys teaching medical and graduate students about homeostasis and the kidney and has been designated “Master Teacher” at USC. Through teaching, service and research. She aims to attract attention to the important role of the kidney in the maintenance of cardiovascular health
Dr. McDonough’s work has been recognized by many prestigious awards, among them the American Heart Association (AHA) Established Investigator Award, the Starling Distinguished Lectureship from the American Physiological Society, and the Donald Seldin Lectureship from the AHA Council on the Kidney in Cardiovascular Disease.
Her lecture is entitled: Maintaining balance under pressure: how concerted transporter regulation achieves fluid and salt homeostasis
We are looking forward to her lecture on May 9th, 2022!
Interested? You can still register for the congress