Dr. Gary K. Beauchamp was the director and president of the

Monell Chemical Senses Center The Monell Chemical Senses Center is a non-profit independent scientific institute located at the University City Science Center campus in Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania. Monell conducts and publishes interdisciplinary basic research on taste, Olfa ...

from August 1990 to September 2014. Dr. Beauchamp graduated from

Carleton College Carleton College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. Founded in 1866, it had 2,105 undergraduate students and 269 faculty members in fall 2016. The 200-acre main campus is between Northfield and the 800-acre Cowling ...

in 1965 with a bachelor's degree in

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

. He received his Ph.D. in biopsychology in 1971 from The

Pritzker School of Medicine The Pritzker School of Medicine is the Doctor of Medicine, M.D.-granting unit of the Biological Sciences Division of the University of Chicago. It is located on the university's main campus in the historic Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighbo ...

of the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. He joined the newly established Monell Center as a postdoctoral fellow in 1971, was appointed to the faculty in 1973, and attained the rank of Member in 1981. Dr. Beauchamp maintains an active research program at Monell, exploring varied topics related to taste,

olfaction The sense of smell, or olfaction, is the special sense through which smells (or odors) are perceived. The sense of smell has many functions, including detecting desirable foods, hazards, and pheromones, and plays a role in taste. In humans, it ...

, and

chemesthesis Chemesthesis is the chemical sensitivity of the skin and mucous membranes. Chemesthetic sensations arise when chemical compounds activate receptors associated with other senses that mediate pain, touch, and thermal perception. These chemical-induc ...

. Trained as a psychobiologist, his research has contributed to advancements in the fields of

developmental psychology Developmental psychology is the science, scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult deve ...

physiological psychology Physiological psychology is a subdivision of behavioral neuroscience (biological psychology) that studies the neural mechanisms of perception and behavior through direct manipulation of the brains of nonhuman animal subjects in controlled experimen ...

, and

perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...

; he also has made important contributions to the fields of

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

developmental biology Developmental biology is the study of the process by which animals and plants grow and develop. Developmental biology also encompasses the biology of Regeneration (biology), regeneration, asexual reproduction, metamorphosis, and the growth and di ...

immunobiology Immunology is a branch of medicineImmunology for Medical Students, Roderick Nairn, Matthew Helbert, Mosby, 2007 and biology that covers the medical study of immune systems in humans, animals, plants and sapient species. In such we can see there ...

ethology Ethology is the scientific study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. Behaviourism as a term also describes the scientific and objectiv ...

, and

molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

. Considered one of the world's leading experts on chemosensory science, Dr. Beauchamp serves as a scientific advisor to numerous governmental and private organizations, including the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

, and

Institute of Medicine The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, E ...

. During the 2009–2010 academic year, Dr. Beauchamp served on the

Committee on Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake in the United States, and after the release of the committee's report, spoke widely about its recommendations.A summary of the report's recommendations can be found i
"Sodium Intake Among Adults – United States, 2005−2006", ''Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)'' 59: 24 ( June 25, 2010): 746-49
published by the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...

Select publications

*Beauchamp, G. K. and J. A. Mennella. (2011) “Flavor perception in human infants: development and functional significance.” Digestion. 83.1, 1-6. *Mennella, J. A.; Lukasewycz, L. D.; Griffith, J. W.; Beauchamp, G. K. (2011) “Evaluation of a forced-choice, paired-comparison tracking procedure method for determining taste preferences across the lifespan.” Chemical Senses. 36.4, 345-55. *Mennella, J. A., Lukasewycz, L. D., Castor, S. M., and Beauchamp, G. K. (2011) “The timing and duration of a sensitive period in human flavor learning: a randomized trial.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 93, 1019-24. *Mennella, J. A., Ventura, A. K., and Beauchamp, G. K. (2011) “Differential growth patterns among healthy infants fed protein hydrolysate or cow-milk formulas.” Pediatrics. 127.1, 110-18. *Peyrot des Gachons, C; Beauchamp, G. K.; Stern, R. M.; Koch, K. L.; Breslin, P. A. S. (2011) “Bitter taste induces nausea.” Current Biology. 21, R247-R248. *Peyrot des Gachons, C; Uchida, K.; Bryant, B. P.; Shima, A.; Sperry, J. B.; Dankulich-Nagrudny, L.; Tominaga, M.; Smith, A. B. III; Beauchamp, G. K.; Breslin, P. A. S. (2011) “Unusual pungency from extra-virgin olive oil is attributable to restricted spatial expression of the receptor of oleocanthal.” Journal of Neuroscience. 31.3, 999-1009. *Field, K. L.; Beauchamp, G. K.; Kimball, B. A.; Mennella, J. A.; Bachmanov, A. A. (2010) “Bitter avoidance in guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) and mice (Mus musculus and Peromyscus leucopus).” Journal of Comparative Psychology. 124, 455-59. *Kwak, J.; Willse, A.; Preti, G.; Yamazaki, K.; Beauchamp, G. K. (2010) “In search of the chemical basis for MHC odourtypes.” Proceedings of the Royal Society. B277, 2417-25. *Beauchamp, Gary K. and Linda Bartoshuk. ''Tasting and smelling.'' San Diego, Academic Press, c1997.

External links

Dr. Beauchamp's page at Monell's website
Describes the discovery by Gary Beauchamp, Paul Breslin, and several others of the

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, of anti-inflammatory properties of oleocanthal, a component of pungent olive oils.
Meet Gary Beauchamp.
April 2011 interview with Gary Beauchamp on website of

Institute of Food Technologists The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) is an international, non-profit scientific society of professionals engaged in food science, food technology, and related areas in academia, government and industry. It has more than 17,000 members from ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beauchamp, Gary Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Pritzker School of Medicine alumni American geneticists