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Warren M. Zapol (1942-14 December 2021
) was the
emeritus
''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
Anesthetist
Anesthesiology, anaesthesiology, or anaesthesia is the medical specialty concerned with the total perioperative care of patients before, during and after surgery. It encompasses anesthesia, intensive care medicine, critical emergency medicin ...
-in-Chief at
Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the third oldest general hospital in the United Stat ...
(1994-2008
) and the Reginald Jenney Distinguished Professor of Anaesthesia at
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...
. From 1994 to 2008, Zapol served as anesthetist-in-chief at MGH and was the director of the MGH Anesthesia Center for Critical Care Research until his death.
The Warren M. Zapol Professorship in Anesthesiology at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital is named in his honor.
Emery N. Brown is the current Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anesthesiology.
Early life and education
Zapol was born in New York and attended Stuyvesant High School.
He received his undergraduate education at
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
(1962) and his
MD from the
University of Rochester School of Medicine
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...
(1966).
Following graduation from the University of Rochester, Zapol served in the
U.S. Public Health Service
The United States Public Health Service (USPHS or PHS) is a collection of agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services concerned with public health, containing nine out of the department's twelve operating divisions. The Assistant ...
from 1967 to 1970. He then began his research at the
U.S. 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 1 ...
(NIH) as a Staff Associate of the
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) is the third largest Institute of the National Institutes of Health, located in Bethesda, Maryland, United States. It is tasked with allocating about $3.6 billion in FY 2020 in tax revenue to ...
. Under the mentorship of
Theodor Kolobow
Theodor Kolobow (1931 – 24 March 2018) was an American physician, scientist, physiologist, and inventor of medical devices, including the membrane oxygenator, common to most modern ventilators.
Early life and education
Theodor Kolobow was bor ...
, Zapol designed an
artificial placenta
An artificial womb or artificial uterus is a device that would allow for extracorporeal pregnancy by growing a fetus outside the body of an organism that would normally carry the fetus to term.
An artificial uterus, as a replacement organ, woul ...
for premature
lambs and performed some of the first long-term extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (
ECMO
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), also known as extracorporeal life support (ECLS), is an extracorporeal technique of providing prolonged cardiac and respiratory support to persons whose heart and lungs are unable to provide an adequat ...
) perfusions in neonates and adults with
infant respiratory distress syndrome
Infantile respiratory distress syndrome (IRDS), also called respiratory distress syndrome of newborn, or increasingly surfactant deficiency disorder (SDD), and previously called hyaline membrane disease (HMD), is a syndrome in premature infants ...
or acute respiratory distress syndrome (
ARDS
Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a type of respiratory failure characterized by rapid onset of widespread inflammation in the lungs. Symptoms include shortness of breath (dyspnea), rapid breathing (tachypnea), and bluish skin color ...
).
Career
Zapol's major research efforts included studies of acute
respiratory failure
Respiratory failure results from inadequate gas exchange by the respiratory system, meaning that the arterial oxygen, carbon dioxide, or both cannot be kept at normal levels. A drop in the oxygen carried in the blood is known as hypoxemia; a rise ...
in animals and humans. Supported by 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 ...
, he has led nine Antarctic expeditions to study the diving mechanisms and adaptations of the
Weddell seal
The Weddell seal (''Leptonychotes weddellii'') is a relatively large and abundant true seal with a circumpolar distribution surrounding Antarctica. The Weddell seal was discovered and named in the 1820s during expeditions led by British sealing ...
.
Through that research his team learned how marine mammals avoid
the bends and
hypoxia (low blood oxygen levels).
He was elected to membership in the (then) Institute of Medicine of the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
in 2002.
In 2003, Zapol and his former research fellow
Claes Frostell received the Inventor of the Year award from the
Intellectual Property Owners Association {{single source, date=July 2012
The Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) is a trade association that is composed of owners of intellectual property, represented mostly by in-house corporate counsel and private practice attorneys practici ...
for the development of a system to safely deliver inhaled
nitric oxide
Nitric oxide (nitrogen oxide or nitrogen monoxide) is a colorless gas with the formula . It is one of the principal oxides of nitrogen. Nitric oxide is a free radical: it has an unpaired electron, which is sometimes denoted by a dot in its che ...
, a technique now used to save the lives of thousands of babies each year that he pioneered with his MGH team.
In 2006, a steep mountain glacier in Antarctica was named for Zapol (78° 35’S, 85° 51’W).
From 2008 through 2016, he was appointed by President
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
and in 2012 reappointed by President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
as an academic representative to the
U.S. Arctic Research Commission
The United States Arctic Research Commission is a List of U.S. federal agencies, United States federal agency. It was established by the ''Arctic Research and Policy Act'' of 1984 (as amended, Public Law 101–609).
Duties
The commission's pri ...
.
In 2011, he presented the third annual John W. Severinghaus Lecture on Translational Research at the
American Society of Anesthesiologists
The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) is an educational, research and scientific association of physicians organized to raise the standards of the medical practice of anesthesiology and to improve patient care.
As of 2021, the organizat ...
Annual Meeting.
[Warren M. Zapol; Life at the Frontier: The Third Annual John W. Severinghaus Lecture on Translational Science. ''Anesthesiology'' 2011; 114:771–781 doi:https://doi.org/10.1097/ALN.0b013e31820708d7]
In 2012, he was designated as a Distinguished Scientist by the
American Heart Association
The American Heart Association (AHA) is a nonprofit organization in the United States that funds cardiovascular medical research, educates consumers on healthy living and fosters appropriate cardiac care in an effort to reduce disability and death ...
.
In 2014, Zapol together with his son
David Zapol founded Third Pole Therapeutics, a US-based company developing next generation life-saving heart and lung therapies. The company is developing products that will generate and deliver electric nitric oxide.
Zapol was inducted as a Fellow by the
National Academy of Inventors
The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) is a US non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging inventors in academia, following the model of the National Academies of the United States. It was founded at the University of South Florida in 2010. ...
in 2016.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zapol, Warren
1942 births
2021 deaths
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American anesthesiologists
Harvard Medical School faculty
People from New York City
Members of the National Academy of Medicine