Pharmacology chair receives prestigious honorary fellowship from The Physiological Society

UC Davis Distinguished Professor Donald M. Bers has been elected an Honorary Fellow by The Physiological Society. The society’s highest honor presented to an individual, the Honorary Fellowship recognizes people of distinction in science who have contributed to the advancement of physiology.

“It is a great honor and a pleasure to accept my selection as an Honorary Fellow of the Physiological Society,” said Bers, who is chair of the Department of Pharmacology at the UC Davis School of Medicine. 

Based in London and founded in 1876, the society is the largest network of physiologists in Europe, with more than 4,000 members. It has given Honorary Fellowships to famed evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin and to numerous Nobel Prize winners, including Andrew Huxley, Alan Hodgkin, David Hubel, Torsten Wiesel, Erwin Neher, Bert Sakmann and David Julius.

Bers’ scientific work has focused on calcium and sodium transport, signaling and electrophysiology in the heart in health and disease.

He has published more than 550 papers, yielding more than 75,000 citations. He has also received continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health for more than 40 years. Bers has led large research groups, including a 10-year NIH Program Project Grant.

His seminal 2002 paper in Nature, “Cardiac excitation—contraction coupling,” and his single-author book on the subject have served for decades as key reference points for heart researchers and cardiologists interested in molecular mechanisms.

In its award letter to Bers, The Physiological Society noted, “As an internationally renowned scientist this award is given in recognition of your outstanding contributions to cardiac physiology as well as your development of computational models that have benefitted many in the discipline.”

Bers holds the Joseph Silva Endowed Chair for Cardiovascular Research and is the director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at UC Davis.

The Physiological Society celebrated Bers’ appointment as an Honorary Fellow at its President’s Lecture and Award Ceremony last month at The Royal Society of Medicine in London.

“It has been my great pleasure to work with hundreds of talented people that I have trained, collaborated with or interacted with at conferences around the world,” Bers said. “The Physiological Society has always had a special place in my heart, from my time as a young postdoctoral scholar in the UK to my years as a Senior Editor of the Journal of Physiology [2011-2021]. I have many friends in this community and that makes this all the sweeter for me.”