Endocrine Abstracts

John RG Challis, CIHR Institute of Human Development, University of Toronto, Canada Abstract

John Challis is currently the Scientific Director of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health. He is also Professor of the Departments of Physiology and Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Toronto, Affiliate Scientist of the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital, and at the Toronto Hospital, and an Affiliate Investigator of the Lawson Health Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada. He is former Chair of the Department of Physiology at the University of Toronto).

Dr Challis was born in Cambridge and received his undergraduate education at the University of Nottingham and his PhD from the University of Cambridge. He conducted postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Diego, and at Harvard Medical School before returning to the University of Oxford as a Research Scientist in 1974. In 1976, he moved to Canada as a Medical Research Council Scholar at McGill University before joining the University of Western Ontario where he was made Professor in the Departments of Physiology and Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 1981. Dr. Challis was the first Scientific Director of the Lawson Research Institute, and Vice-President, Research, at St. Joseph’s Health Centre, London, Ontario. He was founding Director of the MRC Group in Fetal and Neonatal Health and Development. Dr. Challis has served as Chair of the Canadian Investigators in Reproduction, President of the Physiological Society of Canada, President of the Perinatal Research Society, and Chair of the Fetal Physiology Commission of the International Union of Physiological Societies. Currently, he is President Elect of the Society for Gynecologic Investigation, and Chair of the International Council on the Fetal Origins of Adult Disease. He has also served as co-chair of the Standing Committee in Science and Research of the Canadian Medical Research Council, and is a member of the Board of Governors of the University of Toronto.

John Challis is a foremost authority on foetal and maternal physiology. His outstanding research has uncovered fundamental processes contributing to birth at term, and pre-term. He has delineated endocrine responses and adaptations of the foetus to adverse intrauterine circumstances and has described mechanisms by which the foetus interacts with the placenta and mother to ensure a successful outcome to pregnancy. Dr. Challis has published some 400 scientific papers and articles, and has trained more than 60 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in his distinguished career to date

He has received many awards and lectureships for his research. Amongst these are the G. Malcolm Brown Award of the Canadian Federation of Biological Societies (1983), the President’s Scientific Achievement Award of the Society for Gynecologic Investigation (1985), the Walter Cottman Visiting Fellowship (Monash University, Australia, 1987), The Amoroso (1996) and Parkes (2001) Lectureships of the UK Society for the Study of Fertility, the Sir William Liley Lectureship of the Perinatal Research Society (1990), the Visiting Professor of the Australia and New Zealand Perinatal Society (1996) and the F.C. McIntosh Senior Visiting Professorship of the Canadian Physiological Society (1998). He has given key Plenary lectures at the International Union of Physiological Societies (Auckland, 2001), the Endocrine Society (USA, 1997) and the Society for Endocrinology (UK, 2000). In 1992, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC), and in 1998, a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (FRCOG) ad eundum.

He is an Editor of Pediatric Research, Associate Editor of Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, and Editorial Board member of Endocrinology, Journal of Molecular Endocrinology, Journal of Endocrinology, Placenta, Journal of the Society of Gynecological Investigation and Reviews in Reproduction.

John is married with three children, and now lives in Toronto. He is a strong supporter of the Society for Endocrinology and a good friend and valuable collaborator to many of its members.