Molecular & Integrative Physiology

Greetings from the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology (MIP). Phil Best resigned the MIP headship to take a position as associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (interrupted briefly by a tenure as interim dean) and I was appointed head of MIP in December, 2007. Phil guided the department for ten years during the interesting period following the reorganization of Biology into the Schools of Integrative Biology and Molecular & Cellular Biology, and so in many ways was following an uncharted path. About 40% of the present faculty members were recruited during his tenure, and the high quality and vitality of the department are a testament to his strong leadership. He remains an integral part of MIP, continues to teach physiology in the College of Medicine, and provides us valuable advice and assistance from the LAS Dean’s office. We are grateful for his outstanding contributions to MIP. With this newsletter, instead of the typical “newspaper reporter” style, we are experimenting with first person articles from members of MIP about their research. In this issue, we have articles from a new faculty member in her third year, Lori Raetzman; the established faculty Benita Katzenellenbogen and Al Feng; and an affiliate in MIP from the Department of Chemistry, Jonathan Sweedler. We also have an article by Milan Bagchi describing a major accomplishment this year, the new national Center for Research in Reproduction and Infertility. We plan to have an annual Fall newsletter (a little late this year) which will be complemented by a newsletter from the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology in the Spring. We hope you enjoy hearing from us. We would love to hear how and what you are doing, so that we can share it with your fellow alumni in next year’s newsletter. These are exciting times for Physiology, which I believe is poised on the edge of a new golden era. Since the discovery of the DNA helix in the 1950s, great advances have been made in molecular and cellular biology and in deciphering the genome. Essentially all the human genes have now been