Page 3 - CBAC Newsletter 2015

From the direCtor’s desk....

On August 28, 2015, we will celebrate 10 years to CBAC at Washington University. On this
occasion, we will hold a 1-day Symposium: “Cardiac Arrhythmias - The Genes, The Cell,
And the Clinician”. The program was constructed to reflect the interdisciplinary and
integrative spirit of our efforts, attempting to connect basic research to translational ideas
and translational innovation to clinical practice. The program is provided elsewhere in
the newsletter. For those who cannot be with us, we will upload a video version of the
symposium on the CBAC website http://cbac.wustl.edu/pageEducationRetreat.asp

It is hard to believe that ten years have gone by since CBAC was founded. These have
been wonderful years of learning, developing relationships and collaborations, facing
stimulating intellectual challenges, and even making some important contributions to the
science and medicine of cardiac arrhythmias and sudden death. We are greatly indebted
to all the visitors who spent time with us, sharing ideas, delivering fantastic seminars, and
providing feedback to what we do. It takes a village……..

Being members of a scientific community, our research is influenced greatly by the work of
our outstanding colleagues. I would like to use this page to remember and pay tribute to
three such individuals who left us this year – Robert Plonsey, Harry Fozzard and David Yue.

Robert (Bob) Plonsey, Ph.D. died last March in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Bob was a
pioneer in applying the principles of electromagnetic field theory to biological systems,
notably the heart and the nervous system. His mathematical skills and exquisite ability
to extract the physical meaning from mathematical equations resulted in important new
insights in nerve and heart physiology, and in electrocardiography. He started his
academic career in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Case Western Reserve
University (then Case Institute of Technology) and was instrumental in the establishment
of the first Biomedical Engineering Department there almost 50 years ago. Bob contin-
ued to be a leader in this new discipline throughout his life, as president of the major
Biomedical Engineering societies. He received numerous prestigious awards for his
contributions, including the Centennial Medal (1984) and Millennium Medal (2000) from
the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. In 1986, Robert Plonsey became
a member of the National Academy of Engineering “For the application of electromag-
netic field theory to biology, and for distinguished leadership in the emerging profession
of biomedical engineering.” Plonsey authored several outstanding textbooks, including
Principles and Applications of Electromagnetic Fields (with Robert Collin), Bioelectric
Phenomena (a classic; among the first books to apply electromagnetic fields in biology),
Bioelectromagnetism (with Jaakko Malmivuo) and Bioelectricity: A Quantitative Approach
(with Roger Barr; the textbook used in quantitative bioelectricity classes today). On a
personal note, Bob was my Ph.D. advisor and as such a mentor, a dear friend, and an
inspiration. He was a modest man who loved music (Shostakovich was his favorite
composer) and was actively interested in social and human rights issues. In his
wisdom, recognizing that science is always evolving and that what is “true" today might be
“untrue” tomorrow, he said: “you are wrong; and even if you are right, you are wrong…..”