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SSCI Founders Medal Recipient’s Address
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Founders Medal Recipient's Address
SUZANNE OPARIL, MD
I
t is an enormous honor and privilege for me to accept the Founder's Medal of the Southern Society for Clinical Investigation. It is particularly pleasing that the presentation was made by Claude Bennett, now the President of the D niversity of Alabama at Birmingham (DAB), who was Chairman of our Department of Medicine for 12 exciting and productive years. Claude was the first person from Alabama that I ever met-he was a close friend and colleague of my postdoctoral adviser at Massachusetts General Hospital, Edgar Haber, and visited our laboratory often. After visiting with Claude, I had three thoughts: (1) He seems very nice-and extremely bright; (2) He sure does talk funny; and (3) How does he survive in Alabama? Little did I suspect that I would spend the best years of my professional life at The University of Alabama-in an institution shaped by two former Founder's Medal recipients, Tinsley Harrison and Jim Pittman, by Claude and by a number of other distinguished and visionary physician-scientists. UAB is a unique institution--its unique qualities have made possible its rise from provincial obscurity to a place among the nation's leading biomedical research institutions within a period of a few decades. The secret of DAB's success relates to the vision and imagination-and the determination of its leadershipthat decided that Alabama needed not a good medical school, but a great medical school, that would have both a formidable research base and a large and powerful clinical service. To attract a faculty that could realistically strive for such lofty goals, UAB had to offer both material resources and the freedom to develop new programs. With respect to material resources, it is known that the concrete never sets on Dr. Bennett's empire at UAB. With respect to entepreneurialism and the freedom to grow and develop new academic programs, UAB has been a model in which innovation and creative drive have been limited only by one's ability to pay the bills. In this environment, Dr. Harriet Dustan, who is with us today, and I were able to build a program that first focused on fundamental and clinical studies of the pathogenesis of systemic hypertension and which more recently has exCorrespondence: Suzanne Oparil, MD, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Vascular Biology and Hypertension Program of the Di· vision of Cardiovascular Disease, 1034 Zeigler Research Building, 703 South 19th St., Birmingham, AL 35294-0007.
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panded to include studies in vascular biology, with emphasis on the molecular pathogenesis of hypoxic pulmonary hypertension and heart failure. The greatest joy of my 20 years at UAB has been the opportunity to ask and answer very fundamental questions that relate to important disease processes. What is the role of the brain in salt sensitive hypertension? What are the mediators-and modulatorsof hypoxic pulmonary hypertension? How is the angiotensin-converting enzyme gene regulated? And what does it have to do with cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure? Why don't menstruating women develop atherosclerosis? Trainees and junior colleagues from our group will make presentations on all of these topics later in this meeting. I hope that you will come to hear them-their talent, dedication, and sophistication are astounding-and the things they are able to do in the laboratory would have been beyond my wildest dreams when I began doing research almost 30 years ago. Our trainees, like our children, are the hope for the future.
Suzanne Oparil, MD July 1995 Volume 310 Number 1
Oparil
The promise, the excitement, and the dizzying pace of progress in contemporary biomedical research are astonishing. We now have the tools in hand to understand biologic processes at a very fundamental leveland to use that understanding to prevent and cure diseases and relieve human suffering. The challenge we face is to convey our passion for our work-the fire in the belly-to the public at large, to our lawmakers, and to our youth. To do science, indeed, to lead the world in biomedical science, we will need to compete fiercely for resources in an era of fiscal conservatism. We will have to answer the criticisms that we are self serving, that our activities make health care too expensive, that our goal is the mindless prolongation of unproductive lives. I believe we can answer these questions-but we will have to put our minds and hearts into the effort. Most important of all, to attract the best and brightest of our youth, we must be exemplary role models. We must deliver the message that an academic life is a wonderful life-certainly not free of pain but also filled with diversity, challenges and rewards (sometimes very
THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THE MEDICAL SCIENCES
unexpected rewards), as this Founders Medal has been for me. I would like to close by thanking the Southern Society and its sister societies for providing this warm, nurturing environment. This meeting has been a wonderful place for senior investigators to gather and for trainees to present their first work. My special thanks go to Dr. Manuel Martinez-Maldonado, the poet-editor, who solidified my relationship with the SSCI by selecting me, Claude Bennett's nominee, to become Editor of The American Journal of the Medical Sciences when the Society acquired the Journal 10 years ago. Manny has now closed the loop and is doing a magnificent job as my successor. The effort that led to the awarding of this Founder's Medal was shared by many people too numerous to mention here-mentors, scientific collaborators, associate editors, clinical colleagues, trainees, and long suffering staff-you know who you are-and you do share in this honor. Thank you all very much.
5
Founders Medal Recipient's Address
SUZANNE OPARIL, MD
I
t is an enormous honor and privilege for me to accept the Founder's Medal of the Southern Society for Clinical Investigation. It is particularly pleasing that the presentation was made by Claude Bennett, now the President of the D niversity of Alabama at Birmingham (DAB), who was Chairman of our Department of Medicine for 12 exciting and productive years. Claude was the first person from Alabama that I ever met-he was a close friend and colleague of my postdoctoral adviser at Massachusetts General Hospital, Edgar Haber, and visited our laboratory often. After visiting with Claude, I had three thoughts: (1) He seems very nice-and extremely bright; (2) He sure does talk funny; and (3) How does he survive in Alabama? Little did I suspect that I would spend the best years of my professional life at The University of Alabama-in an institution shaped by two former Founder's Medal recipients, Tinsley Harrison and Jim Pittman, by Claude and by a number of other distinguished and visionary physician-scientists. UAB is a unique institution--its unique qualities have made possible its rise from provincial obscurity to a place among the nation's leading biomedical research institutions within a period of a few decades. The secret of DAB's success relates to the vision and imagination-and the determination of its leadershipthat decided that Alabama needed not a good medical school, but a great medical school, that would have both a formidable research base and a large and powerful clinical service. To attract a faculty that could realistically strive for such lofty goals, UAB had to offer both material resources and the freedom to develop new programs. With respect to material resources, it is known that the concrete never sets on Dr. Bennett's empire at UAB. With respect to entepreneurialism and the freedom to grow and develop new academic programs, UAB has been a model in which innovation and creative drive have been limited only by one's ability to pay the bills. In this environment, Dr. Harriet Dustan, who is with us today, and I were able to build a program that first focused on fundamental and clinical studies of the pathogenesis of systemic hypertension and which more recently has exCorrespondence: Suzanne Oparil, MD, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Vascular Biology and Hypertension Program of the Di· vision of Cardiovascular Disease, 1034 Zeigler Research Building, 703 South 19th St., Birmingham, AL 35294-0007.
4
panded to include studies in vascular biology, with emphasis on the molecular pathogenesis of hypoxic pulmonary hypertension and heart failure. The greatest joy of my 20 years at UAB has been the opportunity to ask and answer very fundamental questions that relate to important disease processes. What is the role of the brain in salt sensitive hypertension? What are the mediators-and modulatorsof hypoxic pulmonary hypertension? How is the angiotensin-converting enzyme gene regulated? And what does it have to do with cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure? Why don't menstruating women develop atherosclerosis? Trainees and junior colleagues from our group will make presentations on all of these topics later in this meeting. I hope that you will come to hear them-their talent, dedication, and sophistication are astounding-and the things they are able to do in the laboratory would have been beyond my wildest dreams when I began doing research almost 30 years ago. Our trainees, like our children, are the hope for the future.
Suzanne Oparil, MD July 1995 Volume 310 Number 1
Oparil
The promise, the excitement, and the dizzying pace of progress in contemporary biomedical research are astonishing. We now have the tools in hand to understand biologic processes at a very fundamental leveland to use that understanding to prevent and cure diseases and relieve human suffering. The challenge we face is to convey our passion for our work-the fire in the belly-to the public at large, to our lawmakers, and to our youth. To do science, indeed, to lead the world in biomedical science, we will need to compete fiercely for resources in an era of fiscal conservatism. We will have to answer the criticisms that we are self serving, that our activities make health care too expensive, that our goal is the mindless prolongation of unproductive lives. I believe we can answer these questions-but we will have to put our minds and hearts into the effort. Most important of all, to attract the best and brightest of our youth, we must be exemplary role models. We must deliver the message that an academic life is a wonderful life-certainly not free of pain but also filled with diversity, challenges and rewards (sometimes very
THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THE MEDICAL SCIENCES
unexpected rewards), as this Founders Medal has been for me. I would like to close by thanking the Southern Society and its sister societies for providing this warm, nurturing environment. This meeting has been a wonderful place for senior investigators to gather and for trainees to present their first work. My special thanks go to Dr. Manuel Martinez-Maldonado, the poet-editor, who solidified my relationship with the SSCI by selecting me, Claude Bennett's nominee, to become Editor of The American Journal of the Medical Sciences when the Society acquired the Journal 10 years ago. Manny has now closed the loop and is doing a magnificent job as my successor. The effort that led to the awarding of this Founder's Medal was shared by many people too numerous to mention here-mentors, scientific collaborators, associate editors, clinical colleagues, trainees, and long suffering staff-you know who you are-and you do share in this honor. Thank you all very much.
5