62 years of gastrointestinal research: 1951-2013

In 1951, I began a 2-year postdoctoral research fellowship under Dr Simon Komarov at Temple University. Later, as a staff gastroenterologist at the Orange County General Hospital in California, I was interested in the possible role of blood flow alterations in peptic ulcer disease. We adapted Silvio Baez's just described in vivo microscopy technique to study blood flow in the gastric microcirculation in the anesthetized cat. In 1969, I joined the Gastroenterology Service at the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration (VA), primarily because of the presence there of Dr Morton Grossman, one of the leading researchers in gastrointestinal physiology. The most important lesson I learned from Dr Grossman was the importance of openness--investigators sharing their ideas, thoughts, and findings. Dr Harold Wayland, Professor, California Institute of Technology, helped me in setting up my laboratory at the VA and arranged with his friend Dr Masaharu Tsuchiya, Chair of Gastroenterology at Keio University, Tokyo, Japan, for a collaborative effort with fellows from Keio coming for 2-year fellowships with us (under my grant). Harold introduced us to the fluorescein-labeled albumen technique for the study of microvascular permeability. Later, Dr Jonathon Kaunitz, a colleague at the VA, and Kotaro Kaneko, my Keio University fellow, succeeded in modifying this technique to measure pHi in surface gastric cells in vivo. When I retired in 1993, Dr Kaunitz took charge of my laboratory. He and his associate Dr Akiba have completed extensive studies comparing and contrasting how stomach and duodenal surface cells defend themselves against acid loads. In the course of this work, they have become deeply involved in cell signaling and intracellular pathways when nutrients enter the duodenum. They have developed a technique for using confocal microscopy in vivo in this work. Dr Grossman was right: when investigators share their ideas, everyone benefits and science advances.