Clark M. Blatteis

Clark Martin Blatteis (June 25, 1932 – March 14, 2021), was a

The family was finally able to immigrate to the United States in 1948, where Blatteis continued his education, earning a BA from Rutgers University in 1954, and an MS and a PhD in physiology under the mentorship of Dr. Steven M. Horvath in 1955 and 1957, respectively, from the University of Iowa.^[3] Blatteis later recalled that his introduction by Horvath to his later field of research was "trying to maintain my own body temperature as a test subject in the cold room".^[4] Immediately following his graduation, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and assigned as a first lieutenant, Medical Service Corps, to the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he served until 1961. While there, he conducted experiments on dogs to determine the cause of shivering, reporting that it related to circulation of cooled blood rather than a nervous response.^[1] From 1961 to 1962 he was a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow under Dr. Alberto Hurtado at the Institute of Andean Biology, San Marcos University in Lima, Peru, where he studied fetuses to determine whether acclimation to high altitudes began before birth, and concluding that it did. From 1962 to 1963, he studied under Dr. Geoffrey S. Dawes at Nuffield College, Oxford.^[1]

Upon his return to the U.S. in 1963, Blatteis joined the

The bulk of his research over his years at the University of Tennessee concerned the elucidation of the physiologic mechanism that initiates fever and its associated reactions to infectious pathogens. He published a study on fever induction mechanisms in 1983 which outlined mechanisms by which cytokines produced following infection could cross the blood–brain barrier, and which "launched a new concept of immune to brain signaling".^[1] In a 1996 paper, he proposed a role for the vagus nerve in fever induction.^[1] Also in 1996, he co-edited with M. J. Fregly the American Physiological Society's Handbook of Physiology, Sec. 4, Environmental Physiology, vols. 1 & 2, and in 1998 he co-authored and edited the textbook, Physiology and Pathophysiology of Temperature Regulation, noted as containing "all essential aspects of human thermoregulation".^[9] His work in the 1990s and 2000s continued to focus on various mechanisms by which the body develops fevers, particularly with respect to the lipid compound prostaglandin E₂ (PGE₂) and nitric oxide.^[1] Blatteis reported experimental results indicating that fever may be "induced by a mechanism that is independent of PGE₂", an outcome described as "heresy" according to the literature of the time, and leaving open questions for further investigation.^[1]

Blatties ultimately authored and/or co-authored three other books and over 200 original scientific articles and reviews. He was twice a senior Fulbright-Hays scholar, held numerous fellowships and visiting professorships abroad, and received several

Blatteis met Yolanda Fuentes Barriga of Cusco, Peru, while they both were attending the University of Iowa.^[10] They were married in March 1958 and had three children.^[12] Yolanda died in 2018, and two-and-a-half years later Blatteis himself died in his sleep at his home at the age of 88.^[13][14]

References

External links

• Clark M. Blatteis, PhD, Distinguished Professor Emeritus page at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine
• Holocaust survivor Dr. Clark Blatteis spoke to 8th grade students at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School, Catholic Diocese of Memphis