MAY 27-31 | HAVANA INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE CENTER
2nd Pan-American Congress of Physiological Sciences
Gary Sieck, Ph.D President, International Scientific Committee (ISPC)
GARY SIECK, Ph.D is the Vernon F. and Earline D. Dale Professor of Physiology & Biomedical Engineering at Mayo Clinic and a Mayo Distinguished Investigator.
He served as Chair of the Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering from 2002-2014, Dean for Research Academic Affairs from 2006-2012 and Director of the Biomedical Engineering Program in the Mayo Graduate School from 2001-2013.
Dr. Sieck received a Ph.D. in Physiology and Biophysics from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 1976. He then completed postdoctoral training in Neurophysiology at UCLA in 1979, where he continued as a faculty member in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology. In 1987, Dr. Sieck joined the faculty in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California where he remained until 1990 when he moved to Mayo Clinic. Dr. Sieck served as President of the American Physiological Society (2009-2011) and President of the Association of Chairs of Departments of Physiology (2010-2012). He is a founding Fellow of the American Physiological Society, and an elected Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.
In the past, he served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Applied Physiology from 1999-2005, and he is currently editor-in-chief of Physiology. Dr. Sieck has also served on several study sections at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He has also served as a mentor for 22 Ph.D. students, 71 postdoctoral fellows and 22 visiting scientists.
Dr. Sieck’s research focuses on the neural control of respiratory muscles including the diaphragm and airway smooth muscle. He has published more than 365 peer-reviewed papers, and his research has been continuously funded by multiple grants from the NIH for more than 35 years.
Jack L. Feldman, Ph.D
JACK L. FELDMAN, Ph.D is a Distinguished Professor of Neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He received his Ph.D. (Physics) at the University of Chicago, then did a postdoctoral fellowship at the Université de Paris.
He joined the faculty at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, then moved to Northwestern University School of Medicine and in 1986, joined UCLA. Feldman and his colleagues are renown for their contributions to understanding the neural control of breathing, including discovery (and naming) of the preBötzinger Complex and demonstration of its essential role in generating respiratory rhythm in fetal, neonatal and adult mammals, development of a novel neonatal rodent in vitro slice preparation, discovery (and naming) of the retrotrapezoid nucleus and the validation of his hypothesis (by other laboratories) of its essential role in central chemoreception, and discovery of the RTN/parafacial respiratory group as a second oscillator driving active expiration.
The considerable influence of Feldman’s ideas is evident in numerous highly cited reviews and textbook chapters that also communicate the state of the art to the larger community of neuroscientists and physiologists. He has won numerous awards, including the Hodgkin Huxley Katz Prize of The Physiological Society and an Outstanding Investigator Award from the NIH.
Martin Frank, Ph.D Executive Director, American Physiological Society
MARTIN FRANK, Ph.D received his Ph.D. in Physiology and Biophysics from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in 1973 working under Dr. William W. Sleator. He served as a research associate in the Cellular Physiology Laboratory, Michigan Cancer Foundation, Detroit, and in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Michigan State University, East Lansing. In 1975, he joined the Department of Physiology, George Washington University School of Medicine, Washington, DC, as an assistant professor.
From 1978-1985, he served as the Executive Secretary, Physiology Study Section, Division of Research Grants, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. While at NIH he set up his own personal professional development program, working with various directors in the NIH institutes. During that time, he worked in the Office of the NIH Director to develop the first draft of the SBIR application kit. From 1983-1985, he was a member of the Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program, Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C. As part of the program, he served as a policy analyst in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health, DHHS working to draft language for the Orphan Drug Act.
In 1985, Frank accepted a position as the Executive Director of the American Physiological Society, Bethesda, MD, a position that he held until June 30, 2018 when he retired from the position. The American Physiological Society is a not-for-profit association devoted to fostering education, scientific research, and dissemination of information in the physiological sciences through its meetings and publications. The Society was founded in 1887 with 28 members and now has over 10,500 members. Frank managed a staff of 84 with an annual budget of $20 million.
In 2004, Frank accepted a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring on behalf of the Society for its extensive programs to increase the diversity of the discipline. Frank was also the recipient of the 2001 Distinguished Alumni Award from his academic department at the University of Illinois, Urbana. In 2004, he helped found the Washington DC Principles Coalition for Free Access to Science, a Coalition that represents approximately 70 not-for-profit society and university press publishers. The Coalition believes free access to the scientific literature should be determined by the publishers’ business and publication model, not government mandates. In 2018, he became an honorary member of the Cuban Physiological Society.
Reiber Hansotto
FIELDS OF COMPETENCE
CSF analysis, theory of blood-CSF barrier function and CSF flow. Dynamics of brain and blood-derived proteins in CSF. Neuroimmunology, and basic research in chronic neurological diseases. Particular research in CSF analysis in tropical Neurology. Basic research on nonlinear dynamics of biological processes, self organization concepts in biological and medical sciences. (e.g., immunological network and neurobiology of memory). Analysis of aqueous humor for diagnosis of eye diseases.
SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS
200 peer reviewed publications e.g. on CSF analysis in inflammatory diseases, tropical neurological diseases, pediatric neurological diseases and investigations of inflammatory diseases of the eye, also editor and contributions to textbooks. 10 000 reads and 8000 Citations of this work (11/2018).