Eduardo Krieger
Encyclopedia
Eduardo Moacyr Krieger is an influential Brazil
ian physician
, physiologist and scientific leader, current president of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences
.
to study medicine
at the Medical School of Porto Alegre. There, while he was student, he began working with Prof. Rubens Maciel at the Cardiology Department and decided to pursue a university career in the clinical area.
In 1954, he started a training program for new physiologists, created by CAPES
in Porto Alegre under the coordination of Prof. Maciel. Since Brazil had few physiological research labs at the time, the program was partly supervised by Argentine
physiologists, under Prof. Bernardo Houssay
's leadership (Nobel Prize
, 1947). Having made himself noted for his brilliance and dedication, young Eduardo was invited to work on experimental hypertension
with Prof. Eduardo Braun-Menéndez
in Porto Alegre and Buenos Aires
, at the famous Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental
created by Houssay. This opportunity represented a major influence on his later professional career. He then completed his training in cardiovascular physiology with Prof. W. Hamilton at the University of Georgia
at Augusta
, U.S.
, from 1956 to 1957.
Back in Brazil, he was invited to work at the Department of Physiology of the recently created School of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto
of the University of São Paulo
, in the city of Ribeirão Preto
, state of São Paulo
. His sponsor was Prof. Miguel Rolando Covian
, the new departmental chairman and an Argentine neurophysiologist who had belonged to Prof. Houssay's group and who became very impressed with Krieger during his formative years in Porto Alegre and Buenos Aires. Covian was not disappointed: Krieger completed his doctoral dissertation at Ribeirão Preto under the supervision of Prof. Covian and quickly matured as a strong scientific leader by himself. Besides heading an internationally renowned research group on experimental hypertension, he created the department's cardiovascular physiology group, which became a very influential school for many new physiologists in Brazil. As a result, new laboratories headed by Krieger's former pupils were created in several other universities, in Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo
, Belo Horizonte
, Vitória, Porto Alegre
and Recife
.
Dr. Krieger retired in 1983 from the Medical School of Ribeirão Preto, and since then has been working in hypertension research at the Heart Institute of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of São Paulo, in São Paulo City, having under his direction a multidisciplinary research group, including molecular biologists, physiologists and clinical physicians. He is married and has a son and a daughter, both scientists and research professors.
in animal model
s and the physiological mechanisms of blood pressure
regulation, mainly its neurogenic mechanisms. He described a method for performing the denervation of the sino-aortic baroceptor in the Norwegian rat which is widely used. His studies on the baroreceptor adaptation in hypertension and hypotension are widely recognized and have been published in the main scientific journals of the field. Dr. Krieger is one of the most highly cited Brazilian researchers.
He was also a pioneer in using the rat as a model for the study of blood pressure regulation in sleep
and exercise, as well as in the neural recording of electrical activity of the sympathetic system in physiological conditions. In collaboration with Prof. Sérgio Henrique Ferreira
in the last phase of the discovery of a new ACE inhibitor
extracted from Bothrops
venom, he demonstrated experimentally its efficacy in the reversion of experimental hypertension, thus opening the way for the eventual development of a new antihypertensive drug, captopril
(trademarked Capoten) by Squibb scientists.
, Ministry of Education (CAPES) and the São Paulo Foundation for Research Support
(FAPESP). He was one of the founders and a President of the Brazilian Society of Physiology
(1979-1985), founder and the first President of the Brazilian Federation of Societies of Experimental Biology (FESBE - 1985-1991), and founder and first President of the Brazilian Society of Hypertension (1992-1994). He is one of the three editors who founded and directed the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Scientific Research, one of the best international scientific journals of best quality in the country. He belongs to both the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and to the Brazilian Academy of Medicine (elected 1998).
At the international level, Prof. Krieger is a Director of the Committee on Science and Technology in Developing Countries (COSTED) since 1998, and a member of the Third World Academy of Sciences
(TWAS) since 1995, and was a President of the Inter-American Society of Hypertension,
Dr. Krieger has published more than 120 full papers in international journals. Under his supervision, 19 graduate students got their Masters degrees and 23 their doctoral degrees.
Among his many prizes and awards, Prof. Krieger holds the national decorations of the Grã-Cruz da Ordem Nacional do Mérito Científico (Great Cross of Scientific Merit) by the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil (1994) and the Comenda da Legião do Mérito do Engenheiro Militar (Commend of the Legion of Merit of Military Engineer, 1999), the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Interamerican Society of Hypertension (1997), the Almirante Álvaro Alberto em Medicina e Saúde Pública Award (National Science Award) by the National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (1998), and the Anísio Teixeira Award by the Ministry of Education (2001).
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, physiologist and scientific leader, current president of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences
Brazilian Academy of Sciences
The Brazilian Academy of Sciences is the national academy of Brazil. It is headquartered in the city of Rio de Janeiro and was founded in 1916....
.
Life
Krieger was born to a family of German origins, in the small city of Cerro Largo, in the southernmost state of Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul. In 1946, he moved to Porto AlegrePorto Alegre
Porto Alegre is the tenth most populous municipality in Brazil, with 1,409,939 inhabitants, and the centre of Brazil's fourth largest metropolitan area . It is also the capital city of the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city is the southernmost capital city of a Brazilian...
to study medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
at the Medical School of Porto Alegre. There, while he was student, he began working with Prof. Rubens Maciel at the Cardiology Department and decided to pursue a university career in the clinical area.
In 1954, he started a training program for new physiologists, created by CAPES
Coordenadoria de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
Coordenadoria de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior is a government agency linked to the Brazilian Ministry of Education in charge of promoting high standards for post-graduate courses in Brazil....
in Porto Alegre under the coordination of Prof. Maciel. Since Brazil had few physiological research labs at the time, the program was partly supervised by Argentine
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
physiologists, under Prof. Bernardo Houssay
Bernardo Houssay
-External links:* * . WhoNamedIt.* . Nobel Foundation....
's leadership (Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
, 1947). Having made himself noted for his brilliance and dedication, young Eduardo was invited to work on experimental hypertension
Hypertension
Hypertension or high blood pressure is a cardiac chronic medical condition in which the systemic arterial blood pressure is elevated. What that means is that the heart is having to work harder than it should to pump the blood around the body. Blood pressure involves two measurements, systolic and...
with Prof. Eduardo Braun-Menéndez
Eduardo Braun-Menéndez
Eduardo Braun-Menéndez was a noted Argentine physiologist.-Life and work:Born in Punta Arenas, Chile, he was a naturalized Argentine citizen from a very early age, and was raised in Buenos Aires....
in Porto Alegre and Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, at the famous Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental
Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental
The Experimental Medicine and Biology Institute is a research and development centre affiliated to the University of Buenos Aires, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.-History:...
created by Houssay. This opportunity represented a major influence on his later professional career. He then completed his training in cardiovascular physiology with Prof. W. Hamilton at the University of Georgia
University of Georgia
The University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States...
at Augusta
Augusta, Georgia
Augusta is a consolidated city in the U.S. state of Georgia, located along the Savannah River. As of the 2010 census, the Augusta–Richmond County population was 195,844 not counting the unconsolidated cities of Hephzibah and Blythe.Augusta is the principal city of the Augusta-Richmond County...
, U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, from 1956 to 1957.
Back in Brazil, he was invited to work at the Department of Physiology of the recently created School of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto
Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto
Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto is a medical school of the University of São Paulo located in the city of Ribeirão Preto, state of São Paulo, Brazil, founded 1952...
of the University of São Paulo
University of São Paulo
Universidade de São Paulo is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian university and one of the country's most prestigious...
, in the city of Ribeirão Preto
Ribeirão Preto
Ribeirão Preto is a municipality and city in the Northeastern region of the state of São Paulo in Brazil. It is nicknamed Brazilian California, because of a combination of an economy based on agrobusiness plus high technology, wealth and sunny weather all year long. With 605,114 inhabitants,...
, state of São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
. His sponsor was Prof. Miguel Rolando Covian
Miguel Rolando Covian
Miguel Rolando Covian , was an Argentine-Brazilian physiologist, medical educator and writer.Covian was born in Rufino, Santa Fé Province, Argentina, on September 7, 1913. He studied at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Buenos Aires, where, while a student, he worked also as a teaching...
, the new departmental chairman and an Argentine neurophysiologist who had belonged to Prof. Houssay's group and who became very impressed with Krieger during his formative years in Porto Alegre and Buenos Aires. Covian was not disappointed: Krieger completed his doctoral dissertation at Ribeirão Preto under the supervision of Prof. Covian and quickly matured as a strong scientific leader by himself. Besides heading an internationally renowned research group on experimental hypertension, he created the department's cardiovascular physiology group, which became a very influential school for many new physiologists in Brazil. As a result, new laboratories headed by Krieger's former pupils were created in several other universities, in Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
, Belo Horizonte
Belo Horizonte
Belo Horizonte is the capital of and largest city in the state of Minas Gerais, located in the southeastern region of Brazil. It is the third largest metropolitan area in the country...
, Vitória, Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre is the tenth most populous municipality in Brazil, with 1,409,939 inhabitants, and the centre of Brazil's fourth largest metropolitan area . It is also the capital city of the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city is the southernmost capital city of a Brazilian...
and Recife
Recife
Recife is the fifth-largest metropolitan area in Brazil with 4,136,506 inhabitants, the largest metropolitan area of the North/Northeast Regions, the 5th-largest metropolitan influence area in Brazil, and the capital and largest city of the state of Pernambuco. The population of the city proper...
.
Dr. Krieger retired in 1983 from the Medical School of Ribeirão Preto, and since then has been working in hypertension research at the Heart Institute of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of São Paulo, in São Paulo City, having under his direction a multidisciplinary research group, including molecular biologists, physiologists and clinical physicians. He is married and has a son and a daughter, both scientists and research professors.
Research
Dr. Krieger's main research field is the study of experimental hypertensionHypertension
Hypertension or high blood pressure is a cardiac chronic medical condition in which the systemic arterial blood pressure is elevated. What that means is that the heart is having to work harder than it should to pump the blood around the body. Blood pressure involves two measurements, systolic and...
in animal model
Animal model
An animal model is a living, non-human animal used during the research and investigation of human disease, for the purpose of better understanding the disease without the added risk of causing harm to an actual human being during the process...
s and the physiological mechanisms of blood pressure
Blood pressure
Blood pressure is the pressure exerted by circulating blood upon the walls of blood vessels, and is one of the principal vital signs. When used without further specification, "blood pressure" usually refers to the arterial pressure of the systemic circulation. During each heartbeat, BP varies...
regulation, mainly its neurogenic mechanisms. He described a method for performing the denervation of the sino-aortic baroceptor in the Norwegian rat which is widely used. His studies on the baroreceptor adaptation in hypertension and hypotension are widely recognized and have been published in the main scientific journals of the field. Dr. Krieger is one of the most highly cited Brazilian researchers.
He was also a pioneer in using the rat as a model for the study of blood pressure regulation in sleep
Sleep
Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity, and inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles. It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, and is more easily reversible than...
and exercise, as well as in the neural recording of electrical activity of the sympathetic system in physiological conditions. In collaboration with Prof. Sérgio Henrique Ferreira
Sérgio Henrique Ferreira
Sérgio Henrique Ferreira , Brazil, Brazilian physician and pharmacologist, noted for his discovery of Bradykinin potentiating factor, which led to better anti-hypertension drugs.Ferreira received his M.D...
in the last phase of the discovery of a new ACE inhibitor
ACE inhibitor
ACE inhibitors or angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors are a group of drugs used primarily for the treatment of hypertension and congestive heart failure...
extracted from Bothrops
Bothrops
Bothrops is a genus of venomous pitvipers found in Central and South America. The generic name is derived from the Greek words bothros and ops that mean "pit" and "eye" or "face"; an allusion to the heat-sensitive loreal pit organs. Members of this genus are responsible for more human deaths in the...
venom, he demonstrated experimentally its efficacy in the reversion of experimental hypertension, thus opening the way for the eventual development of a new antihypertensive drug, captopril
Captopril
Captopril is an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor used for the treatment of hypertension and some types of congestive heart failure. Captopril was the first ACE inhibitor developed and was considered a breakthrough both because of its novel mechanism of action and also because of the...
(trademarked Capoten) by Squibb scientists.
Scientific leadership
Along with his activities as a professor and researcher, Dr. Krieger has also made great contributions to the development of science and higher education in Brazil. He participated in the university reform at USP from 1968 to 1969, and cooperated with many research grants committees of CNPq (Brazilian National Research and Development CouncilConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
The Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico is an organization of the Brazilian federal government under the Ministry of Science and Technology, dedicated to the promotion of scientific and technological research and to the formation of human resources for research in the...
, Ministry of Education (CAPES) and the São Paulo Foundation for Research Support
Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo is a public foundation located in São Paulo, Brazil, with the aim of providing grants, funds and programs to support research, education and innovation of private and public institutions and companies in the state of São Paulo...
(FAPESP). He was one of the founders and a President of the Brazilian Society of Physiology
Brazilian Society of Physiology
The Brazilian Society of Physiology is a learned society and association of students and professionals in physiology in Brazil. It is a member of the Brazilian Federation of Experimental Biology Societies and of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science...
(1979-1985), founder and the first President of the Brazilian Federation of Societies of Experimental Biology (FESBE - 1985-1991), and founder and first President of the Brazilian Society of Hypertension (1992-1994). He is one of the three editors who founded and directed the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Scientific Research, one of the best international scientific journals of best quality in the country. He belongs to both the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and to the Brazilian Academy of Medicine (elected 1998).
At the international level, Prof. Krieger is a Director of the Committee on Science and Technology in Developing Countries (COSTED) since 1998, and a member of the Third World Academy of Sciences
Third World Academy of Sciences
TWAS, until 2004 named Third World Academy of Sciences and now TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world, is a merit-based science academy uniting 1,000 scientists in some 70 countries. Its principal aim is to promote scientific capacity and excellence for sustainable development in...
(TWAS) since 1995, and was a President of the Inter-American Society of Hypertension,
Dr. Krieger has published more than 120 full papers in international journals. Under his supervision, 19 graduate students got their Masters degrees and 23 their doctoral degrees.
Among his many prizes and awards, Prof. Krieger holds the national decorations of the Grã-Cruz da Ordem Nacional do Mérito Científico (Great Cross of Scientific Merit) by the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil (1994) and the Comenda da Legião do Mérito do Engenheiro Militar (Commend of the Legion of Merit of Military Engineer, 1999), the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Interamerican Society of Hypertension (1997), the Almirante Álvaro Alberto em Medicina e Saúde Pública Award (National Science Award) by the National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (1998), and the Anísio Teixeira Award by the Ministry of Education (2001).
Selected bibliography
- KRIEGER, E. M. 1970. Time-course of baroreceptor resetting in acute hypertension. American Journal of Physiology. vol. 218, p. 486-490.
- KRIEGER, E. M., SALGADO, H. C., ASSAN, C. J., GREENE, L. J. and FERREIRA, S. H.. 1971. Potential screening test for detection of overactivity of renin-angiotensin system. The Lancet. vol. 6, p. 69-271.
- KRIEGER, E. M. 1984. Neurogenic hypertension in the rat. In Handbook of Hypertension. Elsevier Science Publishers: vol. 4, p. 350-363. In: JONG, W. DE (ed.) Elsevier Science Publishers B.B. "Experimental and Genetic Models of Hypert
- MICHELINI, L. C. and KRIEGER, E. M. 1986. Aortic caliber changes during development of hypertension in freely moving rats. American Journal of Physiology. vol. 251, p. 662-671.
- KRIEGER, E. M. 1986. Neurogenic mechanisms in hypertension: resetting of the baroreceptors - State of the Art Lecture. Hypertension. vol. 8, p. 7-14. April
- FRANCHINI, K. G. and KRIEGER, E. M. 1992. Carotid chemoreceptors influence arterial pressure in intact and aortic-denervated rats. American Journal of Physiology. vol. 262, p. 677-683.
Source
- Adapted from Eduardo Moacyr Krieger Biography. Brazilian Academy of Sciences, 2004.