Anthony Basile, a graduate student in the laboratory of Dr. Karen Sweazea at Arizona State University, presented an interesting talk at the 2019 Arizona Physiological Society conference. He presented data from an international study conducted to explore how physiologists define comparative physiology today.
August Krogh was credited with the founding of comparative physiology. In 1929 he published a paper that included a profound statement, “For such a large number of problems there will be some animal of choice, or a few such animals, on which it can be most conveniently studied.” By studying other animals, physiologists can come up with generalizations about how the body works. Other types of modern comparative physiology research includes comparing the physiology of animals to humans as well as examining extreme (high altitude flight of bar headed geese) and unique traits (cancer resistance in mole rats) in animals.
I like to think we talk about research involving all of these forms of comparative physiology in this forum.
Categories: Comparative Physiology, Physiology on the Road
Tags: American Physiological Society, Arizona, August, Comparative Physiology, conference, Krogh, physiology, research, Survey
Life Lines by Dr. Dolittle 