Louis G. D’Alecy Professorship of Physiology Louis G. D’Alecy, D.M.D., Ph.D., was born in 1941 on Staten Island, New York City, attended Seton Hall University, earned a D.M.D. in 1966 from New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry, and then earned a Ph.D. in 1971 in Physiology at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. After a postdoctoral fellowship, he was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. In 1973 he accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Physiology at the University of Michigan Medical School at the request of Professor Horace Davenport. In 1979-1980 he took a sabbatical as a Visiting Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard University. At Michigan, he rose through the ranks to Professor of Physiology in 1983. From 1985 through 2006 he also held a joint appointment in the Department of Surgery. He retired from his active faculty status on December 14, 2016, and is currently an Active Professor Emeritus of Physiology. time undergraduate and medical student research internships At Michigan, Professor D’Alecy has had diverse academic
all of which enriched and colored his formal classroom teaching
accomplishments in education, research, and service. In
and electrified his scientific work on an eclectic variety of
1973, he began by offering a team-taught course in human
collaborative basic science physiology investigations.
physiology with Professor Matthew Kluger. By 1979 this course was enrolling over 300 students a year and drawing
His doctoral dissertation, under Professor Eric O. Feigl,
from the Dental school, Graduate Nursing and Pharmacy
identified
schools. He transitioned to teaching the undergraduate
blood flow to the brain. At Michigan, the American Heart
Honors Program and the Interflex Program and eventually to
Association awarded him with Grants-in-Aid and then a five-
a growing role in directing and teaching in the Medical School
year Established Investigatorship award. Funding from the
sequences for cardiovascular and respiratory physiology.
National Institutes of Health and numerous pharmaceutical
This last assignment spanned over 36 years from 1981 to
companies contributed to our understanding of the functioning
his retirement in 2017. He received multiple teaching awards
and pathophysiology of the cardiovascular and respiratory
including the Kaiser Permanente Award for Excellence in
systems. Early career collaborations with Professor Kluger
Preclinical Teaching -- which he received several times -- and
identified the role of nasal versus tracheal airflow in the
the Endowment for the Basic Sciences (EBS) teaching Award
control of deep brain temperature in rabbits. Perhaps the
in Physiology. In 2014, he received the prestigious Lifetime
most frequently cited paper with Professor Kluger was the
Achievement Award in Medical Education.
seminal study in birds that established, for the first time, the
sympathetic
and
parasympathetic
control
of
existence, and evolutionary significance of the fever response Beyond the classroom Professor D’Alecy played a substantial
which led to our current understanding of the widespread
teaching role in his research laboratory, which included 45
adaptive and protective value of fever in the body’s response
memberships in doctoral thesis committees and the mentoring
to trauma and infection.
of 11 postdoctoral trainees. He hosted 18 graduate research rotations, 13 undergraduate honors theses, and over 80 part-
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Physiology Matters
Virtually all of the 140 published research studies from the
