Endocrinology is a branch of biology and medicine dealing with the endocrine system, its diseases, and its specific secretions known as hormones. It is also concerned with the integration of developmental events proliferation, growth, and differentiation, and the psychological or behavioral activities of metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, sleep, digestion, respiration, excretion, mood, stress, lactation, movement, reproduction, and sensory perception caused by hormones. Specializations include behavioral endocrinology and comparative endocrinology.
The University of Bristol is a red brick Russell Group research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Bristol, which had been in existence since 1876. Bristol Medical School, founded in 1833, was merged with the University College in 1893, and later became the university's school of medicine.
The University of Bath is a public research university in Bath, England. It received its royal charter in 1966, along with a number of other institutions following the Robbins Report. Like the University of Bristol and University of the West of England, Bath can trace its roots to the Merchant Venturers' Technical College, established in Bristol as a school in 1595 by the Society of Merchant Venturers. The university's main campus is located on Claverton Down, a site overlooking the UNESCO World Heritage city of Bath, and was purpose-built, constructed from 1964 in the modernist style of the times.
Sir Nigel John Thrift is a British academic and geographer. In 2018 he was appointed as Chair of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, a committee that gives independent scientific and technical advice on radioactive waste to the UK government and the devolved administrations. He is a visiting professor at the University of Oxford and Tsinghua University and an emeritus professor at the University of Bristol. In 2016 and 2017 he was the executive director of the Schwarzman Scholars, an international leadership program at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Warwick from 2006 to 2016. He is a leading academic in the fields of human geography and the social sciences.
Photoperiod is the change of day length around the seasons. The rotation of the earth around its axis produces 24 hour changes in light (day) and dark (night) cycles on earth. The length of the light and dark in each phase varies across the seasons due to the tilt of the earth around its axis. The photoperiod defines the length of the light, for example a summer day the length of light could be 16 hours while the dark is 8 hours, whereas a winter day the length of day could be 8 hours, whereas the dark is 16 hours. Importantly, the seasons are different in the northern hemisphere than the southern hemisphere.
Sir Eric Jackson Thomas FMedSci was an English academic who was vice-chancellor of the University of Bristol from 2001 to 2015. From 2003 to 2007, he was chair of the Worldwide Universities Network and was the president of Universities UK from 2011 to 2013.
Erwin Bünning was a German biologist. His most famous contributions were to the field of chronobiology, where he proposed a model for the endogenous circadian rhythms governing plant photoperiodism. From these contributions, Bünning is considered a co-founder of chronobiology along with Jürgen Aschoff and Colin Pittendrigh.
The Japanese quail, also known as the coturnix quail, is a species of Old World quail found in East Asia. First considered a subspecies of the common quail, it is now considered as a separate species. The Japanese quail has played an active role in the lives of humanity since the 12th century, and continues to play major roles in industry and scientific research. Where it is found, the species is abundant across most of its range. Currently, there are a few true breeding mutations of the Japanese quail. The varieties currently found in the United States include Pharaoh, Italian, Manchurian, Tibetan, Rosetta, along with the following mutations: sex-linked brown, fee, roux, silver, andalusian, blue/blau, white winged pied, progressive pied, albino, calico, sparkly, as well as non-color mutations such as celadon.
Professor Dame Janet Patricia Beer, is a British academic who served as the Vice Chancellor of the University of Liverpool from February 2015 until December 2022. She took over from Howard Newby, having previously been Vice-Chancellor at Oxford Brookes University and Pro-Vice Chancellor Academic and Dean of Humanities, Law and Social Sciences at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Russell Grant Foster, CBE, FRS FMedSci is a British professor of circadian neuroscience, the Director of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology and the Head of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute (SCNi). He is also a Nicholas Kurti Senior Fellow at Brasenose College at the University of Oxford. Foster and his group are credited with key contributions to the discovery of the non-rod, non-cone, photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (pRGCs) in the mammalian retina which provide input to the circadian rhythm system. He has written and co-authored over a hundred scientific publications.
Derek Clissold Burke was a British academic who served as vice-chancellor of the University of East Anglia from 1987 to 1995.
Colin Stephenson Pittendrigh was a British-born biologist who spent most of his adult life in the United States. Pittendrigh is regarded as the "father of the biological clock," and founded the modern field of chronobiology alongside Jürgen Aschoff and Erwin Bünning. He is known for his careful descriptions of the properties of the circadian clock in Drosophila and other species, and providing the first formal models of how circadian rhythms entrain (synchronize) to local light-dark cycles.
Roger Ekins FRS was a British biophysicist and professor at University College London. He was awarded the 1998 Edwin F. Ullman Award.
Tan Sri Zakri bin Abdul Hamid has had a distinguished career in science as a researcher, educator, administrator and diplomat.
The Roslin Institute is an animal sciences research institute at Easter Bush, Midlothian, Scotland, part of the University of Edinburgh, and is funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
(Dorothy) Claire Wathes née Bulman is a British veterinary researcher who studies the reproduction of farm animals. She is known for her work on infertility in dairy cattle. As of 2018, she is a professor of veterinary reproduction at the Royal Veterinary College in Hatfield.
Gonadotropin-inhibitory hormone (GnIH) is a RFamide-related peptide coded by the NPVF gene in mammals.
Michael Harvey Hastings is a British neuroscientist who works at the Medical Research Council MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge, UK. Hastings is known for his contributions to the current understanding of biological clocks in mammals and marine invertebrates.
Laura Elizabeth Green is a British epidemiologist and academic who is Pro-vice-chancellor and Head of the College of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham. She serves on the council of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
Randy J. Nelson is an American neuroscientist who holds the Hazel Ruby McQuain Chair for Neurological Research and the founding chair of the Department of Neuroscience at the West Virginia University School of Medicine. Much of his research has focused on the contribution of circadian and seasonal rhythms on physiology and behavior.
