June 24, 2008

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Jack Lancaster Jr., Ph.D., a professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) departments of Anesthesiology, Environmental Health Sciences, and Physiology and Biophysics has been granted an endowed position. Lancaster is now the William A. Lell, M.D./Paul N. Samuelson, M.D., Endowed Professor in Anesthesiology. The appointment was approved by the University of Alabama System Board of Trustees.

Lancaster is an international expert in the biological applications of nitric oxide (NO), a colorless gas widely studied for its medical and biological benefits. NO can be toxic to humans if breathed at high doses without medical supervision.

Lancaster, who has been at UAB since 2002, holds three professor positions, including his primary appointment in anesthesiology. He is also a member of the UAB Center for Free Radical Biology.

His research focuses on the dynamics of NO in blood and tissue, and on the role of NO in injury, tissue inflammation, infection and heart attacks. He is a co-founder of the Nitric Oxide Society and the editor-in-chief of the journal Nitric Oxide: Chemistry and Biology.

Lancaster earned his doctoral degree from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis and was later appointed assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Utah State University in Logan. For a decade he held appointments first at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and then at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center before coming to UAB.