Anita Aperia will present the Earl H. Morris Endowed Lecture

Anita Aperia, professor of pediatrics at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, will give a lecture at Wright State on Oct. 22.

Internationally known researcher Anita Aperia, M.D., Ph.D., will be the keynote speaker at the Boonshoft School of Medicine Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology Earl H. Morris Endowed Lectureship on Thursday, Oct. 22, at Wright State University.

The event will be held at 10 a.m. in the Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building auditorium, room 101. It is free and open to the public.

Aperia, professor of pediatrics at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, will speak about the “Role of Na/K ATPase in Monogenic Neuronal Disorders and Renal Protection.”

She is known for her research on the energy efficiency of the body and its individual cells. Her pediatric cell and molecular biology lab is focused on understanding the many aspects of Na/K ATPase, which is known as the ion pump that maintains the electrochemical gradient across the plasma membrane. This enzyme has a central role in all mammalian cells and consumes more than 30 percent of all energy in the body.

Aperia’s research group has made several pioneering contributions to the understanding of specific function of neuronal Na/K ATPase. She is studying the functional consequences of disease mutations, using a variety of imaging and modeling approaches. The Na/K ATPase signal has been shown to play a major role in the protection against apoptosis, or programmed cell death, in fetal malnourishment, infections with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli and chronic kidney disease.

A native of Sweden, Aperia graduated from the Karolinska Institute Medical School and received her Ph.D. training at Yale University. She has been at the Karolinska Institute since 1976. She was the founder and project leader for the Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital, the largest children’s hospital in Northern Europe.

Appointed in 1987 to the Nobel Assembly for Physiology or Medicine in Stockholm, she served as a member until 2003. From 1991 through 1996, she was the first woman to chair the Nobel Assembly. She has served as a council member of the International Society of Nephrology, the International Pediatric Society of Nephrology and the European Society of Nephrology. She was the 2001 recipient of the Jean Hamburger Award and the first pediatrician to receive the prestigious international award, which recognizes outstanding research in nephrology with a clinical emphasis.

In 2011, she received the Homer W. Smith Award from the American Society of Nephrology, and in 2013, she presented the Robert W. Berliner Endowed Lecture at Yale. She also received the Torsten and Ragnar Soderberg Prize in Medicine from the Swedish Society of Medicine and another Swedish honor, His Majesty the King’s Medal.

A dedicated teacher, Aperia has been a professor for 35 years, training numerous undergraduate students and pediatric residents. She has supervised almost 50 Ph.D. students and 30 postdoctoral fellows. She also has published about 300 original papers, 40 review articles and 10 textbook chapters.

About the Earl H. Morris Endowed Lectureship

The Earl H. Morris Endowed Lectureship was established by the family of Mariana Morris, Ph.D., former chair and professor of pharmacology and toxicology, in honor of her grandfather, Earl Morris, M.D.

He was born in Bellbrook, Ohio, in 1872, and received his M.D. from the University of Cincinnati Medical School in 1903. The Montgomery County and Ohio State Medical Societies honored him in 1954 for 50 years of medical practice.

Throughout his lifetime, he was an avid learner and was interested in medical research and advances in clinical practice. The lectureship is a tribute to his lifelong dedication to the science of medicine.