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People who show up to work every day — year after year — and steadily build a body of work that serves as a blue print and educational fodder for those who come after.
UNMC’s Irving H. Zucker, Ph.D., serves this role in the world of biomedical research.
For more than 30 years, the professor and chairman of the cellular and integrative physiology department in the UNMC College of Medicine has methodically pursued quality research that has led to scientific advances, educated his students and drawn praise and reward from peers and funding agencies.
“The reason he’s been so good at what he does for so long is that he loves what he does,” said Johnnie Hackley, a researcher who has worked in Dr. Zucker’s laboratory at UNMC for more than 30 years. “He is the science.”
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It brought him to UNMC in 1972 to study as a fellow with Joseph Gilmore, Ph.D., then a professor and chairman of the UNMC Department of Physiology and Biophysics.
It kept him here a year later when he was offered a faculty position at a Chicago university. And it led him out of renal studies into a career in cardiovascular research that has seen him become one of the world’s leading experts in heart failure.
It also has led to an extensive history of highly-funded grant programs including a Program Project Grant through the National Institutes of Health to study chronic heart failure.
As part of this grant, Dr. Zucker conducts research aimed at understanding the neural regulation in heart failure — a condition that afflicts about 5 million Americans.
“When one has heart failure, the heart doesn’t pump as it should, and the brain says, ‘We’ve got to do something to fix this,’ ” Dr. Zucker said. “One way it does this is activating the sympathetic nervous system, which sends signals to divert blood from other organs toward the heart and brain and to keep blood pressure from falling.”
This redirection of blood helps the body survive in the short term. But for those with chronic heart failure, this process is repetitive and leads to damaged organs that do not receive adequate blood flow.
Also as part of this process, the body experiences an increase in harmful free radicals, which causes a decrease in nitric oxide — a molecule that helps control blood pressure and blood flow.
This process self propagates because the increase in free radicals causes more stress to the cardiovascular system, which leads to more heart failure.
Dr. Zucker’s team showed that another molecule called angiotensin II leads to the increase in free radicals in the brain in heart failure. When the brain senses heart failure, neurons in the brain become more sensitive to angiotensin II, which sends messages to create more free radicals.
Dr. Zucker’s team wants to see if the sympathetic nervous system’s response can be dampened in patients with chronic heart failure.
And exercise therapy, he said, may be one way to get this response.
Dr. Zucker’s team has noted in animal models that exercise therapy seems to make neurons in the brain less sensitive to angiotensin II and this leads to higher levels of nitric oxide and lower levels of free radicals.
“Our studies and those done elsewhere indicate that exercise may be beneficial for heart failure patients,” Dr. Zucker said.
He wants to understand the biochemical mechanism that contributes to the effects of exercise that makes these neurons less sensitive to angiotensin II.
“The translational component of this work is that if we can see the chemical changes in the brain that occur during exercise, we may be able to help formulate therapies and drugs to create these beneficial states in patients,” he said.
This process of following the science to find answers to problems is what Dr. Zucker thrives on, he and his colleagues said.
“I really enjoy designing and carrying out good experiments that will determine the answer to a physiological question,” Dr. Zucker said. “It’s harder than it sounds but it’s part of what makes this job so rewarding.”
And he loves sharing this process with students and others who work with him, Hackley said.
“He absolutely loves to teach,” Hackley said. “He will patiently go over something with a student over and over until the student gets it.”
He also is a great advocate for his students and staff, Hackley said.
“He never tries to hold anyone back,” she said. “He’s always looking to help those he works with move along in their careers, even if that means moving on from their work with him.”
It’s this fair approach that has caused several on his staff to work with him for decades, Hackley said.
“If you do your job, you’re going to get along great with him,” Hackley said.
Cindy Norton, who has served as Dr. Zucker’s administrative assistant for more than 20 years, said one of his greatest attributes is his hands-off approach with those who work for him.
“He really trusts us to do our jobs and he does a great job of stepping back and letting everyone use their talents,” Norton said. “He really is great to work for.”
Tom Rosenquist, Ph.D., UNMC’s vice chancellor for research, said the medical center is indeed fortunate to have been Dr. Zucker’s academic home for his entire career.
“UNMC and Irv Zucker — it’s been a wonderful, productive partnership for 30 years,” Dr. Rosenquist said. “Dr. Zucker is one of those rare scientists who not only adapts to the rapid changes that characterize 21st-century science, but by his creative and agile approaches to research in heart function, he has helped define for the rest of the world-wide scientific community the direction and magnitude of those changes.
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While his passion for science has forged his career, his passions for family, food, travel and the New York Yankees have kept him occupied outside the laboratory.
He and his wife of 37 years, Judy, have three daughters, Sherri, Dana and Lauren.
“I have been extremely fortunate to have been surrounded with some of the most spectacular and supportive women,” Dr. Zucker said. “Judy deserves much of the credit for my success. She even agreed to come to Nebraska 36 years ago!”
Dr. Zucker fancies himself a cook and those who have tasted his cuisine have provided favorable reviews.
“He’s brought in samples of his cooking before and it was quite good,” Norton said. “He’s really good when it comes to making Italian food.”
And as for his Yankees, well, Dr. Zucker has high expectations for the Bronx Bombers this season.
“I have no doubt that they will win the World Series this year and close out their last season in the original Yankee Stadium in style,” he said