Contact:          Tania Banak, University Relations Specialist
608/263-6716, banakt@svm.vetmed.wisc.edu
Date issued:    May 2, 2008

MADISON – Dr. Peter MacFarlane, a postdoctoral research associate in Dr. Gordon Mitchell’s laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, is one of 18 individuals selected from across North America to receive a prestigious 2008 Parker B. Francis Fellowship.

This Fellowship provides funding to outstanding young lung researchers in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.  Since 1976, Parker B. Francis Fellowship Program has contributed more than $40 million to the support of more than 700 Fellows in the fields of lung biology and respiratory disease.

Dr. MacFarlane studies factors that affect plasticity, or adaptation, of breathing mechanisms to adverse conditions.  Specifically, he’s looking at how serotonin may stimulate the brainstem and spinal cord to enhance breathing in situations during and following oxygen deprivation. 

His work is part of a broader thrust to learn how breathing might be restored in patients with high cervical spinal cord injury.

MacFarlane will receive $50,000 annually over three years. 

Parker B. Francis Fellows have made remarkable discoveries working in laboratories and clinics in North America and throughout the world.  They have published their work in the best-known scientific and medical journals, and their research has improved patient care and identified preventive strategies to decrease the incidence of pulmonary disease, disability and death.  Many fill leadership positions in prominent professional organizations throughout the world.

Parker B. Francis, founder of the Puritan-Bennett Company, established a foundation bearing his name in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1951. Since Puritan-Bennett was a leading manufacturer of respiratory equipment and medical gases, the primary emphasis of the Foundation was related to pulmonary research. Today, the Francis Family Foundation remains the sole benefactor of the Parker B. Francis Fellowship Program; in addition to supporting educational and cultural programs geographically located within the greater Kansas City area.