{"id":24915,"date":"2021-03-17T14:16:17","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T13:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/?p=24915"},"modified":"2022-10-19T10:45:47","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T08:45:47","slug":"the-department-of-physiology-celebrates-its-250th-academic-year-with-a-series-of-online-lectures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/2021\/03\/the-department-of-physiology-celebrates-its-250th-academic-year-with-a-series-of-online-lectures\/","title":{"rendered":"The Department of Physiology celebrates its 250th academic year with a series of online lectures"},"content":{"rendered":"

The <\/span>Department<\/span> of Physiology is celebrating its 250th academic year with <\/span>a <\/span>series of <\/span>nine <\/span>online lectures <\/span>organized <\/span>until the end of June. <\/span>The Department of Physiology is one of the five departments established at the found<\/span>ation<\/span> of the university, <\/span> th<\/span>erefore it is of the same<\/span> age as the institution <\/span>itself<\/span>. The first <\/span>lecture<\/span> of the jubilee series of events was <\/span>hel<\/span>d by <\/span>D<\/span>r. L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Hunyady, <\/span>Head<\/span> of the <\/span>Department. At<\/span> the opening <\/span>of the online event<\/span>, <\/span>Dr.<\/span> B\u00e9la Merkely, <\/span>Rector<\/span> and <\/span>D<\/span>r. Tam\u00e1s Freund, President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences <\/span>greeted the audience<\/span>.<\/span> <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cSemmelweis University celebrated the 250th anniversary of its found<\/span>ation<\/span> in the 2019\/2020 academic year, while this year\u2019s academic year is the 250th in the life of the institution. As part of a series of jubilee celebrations organized on this occasion and extended due to the epidemic, the <\/span>Department<\/span> of Physiology will commemorate its 250th academic year with a series of lectures in the form of an online webinar, adapted to the epidemic situation. <\/span>During the nine <\/span>occasions<\/span>, those interested <\/span>may<\/span> get <\/span>acquainted with<\/span> the outstanding scientific results of the current and former lecturers and researchers of the <\/span>department<\/span> The invited lecturers will be renowned researchers working <\/span>in Hungary or<\/span> abroad, who have started their professional careers at the <\/span>Department <\/span>of Physiology in the last 30 years\u201d, <\/span>said Dr. B\u00e9la Merkely.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The rector recalled that the Department of Physiology was the same age as the university, and when it was founded, the Institute of Physiology and Pharmacology was one of the first five departments. The \u201cpharmacology\u201d section was discontinued in September 1891, when the teaching of histology and pharmacology was taken over by other institutes.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Dr. B\u00e9la Merkely also mentioned that the reputation of the <\/span>institute<\/span> has been established by such excellent professors-<\/span>directors<\/span> as \u00c1d\u00e1m Ign\u00e1c Prandt (1770-1786), S\u00e1muel R\u00e1cz (1786-1806), Ferenc Bene (1806-1808), Mih\u00e1ly Lenhoss\u00e9k (1808-1819), Jen\u0151 Jendrassik (1860-1891), N\u00e1ndor Klug (1891-1909) or Alad\u00e1r Bezn\u00e1k (1935-1945). Five of its directors also served as rectors of the university.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Dr. B\u00e9la Merkely pointed out, the Department of Physiology traditionally carries out high-quality, internationally recognized scientific activities, and since 1981 its profile has shifted significantly towards cellular and molecular physiology.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Education at the Department of Physiology. Photo (illustration): Istv\u00e1n Bielik<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe <\/span>aim<\/span> of the university and the rector\u2019s program is to become one of the top 100 higher education institutions in the world and the best 5 healing institutions in Europe in its field within 10 years. In order to achieve this ambitious goal, I count on the colleagues <\/span>who are teaching and doing research <\/span>at the <\/span>Department <\/span>of Physiology\u201d, <\/span>the Rector emphasized.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Research work at the Department of Physiology. Photo (illustration): Attila Kov\u00e1cs – Semmelweis University<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt<\/span> is respectable on a historical scale <\/span>as well <\/span>that the <\/span>department<\/span> now <\/span>has the opportunity to <\/span>celebrate its 250th academic year, which has always been an important center of scientific life. This is indicated by the fact that <\/span>ten<\/span> of <\/span>its<\/span> 14 directors appointed since the founding of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences were members of the academy\u201d, <\/span>highlighted Dr. Tam\u00e1s Freund, President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

He also reminded the audience that originally the main purpose of founding the academy was to nurture the Hungarian language. The Department of Physiology was also a leader in this area: the first Hungarian-language medical textbook entitled \u201cA Short Summary of Physiology\u201d was written in 1789 by the then director of the institute, S\u00e1muel R\u00e1cz, and later Jen\u0151 Jendrassik carried out the language renewal in the field of physiology. The introduction of many Hungarian physiological terms still used today is connected to his name.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cToday, one of the active-age lecturers of the <\/span>department <\/span>is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, four are doctors of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and 25 <\/span>of them<\/span> have a scientific qualification. It is an exceptional success that four <\/span>of them<\/span> have won the Momentum <\/span>grant<\/span> in recent years\u201d, <\/span>Dr. Tam\u00e1s Freund said.<\/span><\/p>\n

In his greeting, Dr. L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Hunyady, d<\/span>epartment head<\/span>, recalled that one of the important goals of the lecture series is to enable young people to get acquainted with the activities of their predecessors. <\/span>The idea<\/span> arose in connection with the earlier celebration of <\/span>Dr. <\/span>Erzs\u00e9bet <\/span>Ligeti, Professor<\/span> Emeritus\u2019 birthday, to which many colleagues working abroad were <\/span>also <\/span>invited. The program <\/span>received<\/span> the title \u201cOutstanding Scientific Achievements of the Current and <\/span>Former<\/span> Teachers of the <\/span>Department<\/span> of Physiology in the Last Year of the 250 Academic Year<\/span>s<\/span>\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGenerations follow each other in the same way as stitches, and this refers to the relationship between mentor and student in science\u201d, Dr. L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Hunyadi provided an insight to the title of the program.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo: Andr\u00e1s Dim\u00e9ny (photo taken earlier)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first lecture of the program was held by Dr. L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Hunyady entitled \u201cG-protein independent signaling mechanisms and their therapeutic potential\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

H<\/span>e also briefly referred to the past of the <\/span>department,<\/span> mentioning several former leaders of the faculty, praising their outstanding activities. <\/span>In connection w<\/span>ith <\/span>his two<\/span> predecessors, <\/span>Dr.<\/span> Attila Fony\u00f3 and <\/span>Dr. <\/span>Andr\u00e1s Sp\u00e4t, he emphasized that the<\/span>ir names<\/span> were associated with the transition from classical physiology to cellular and molecular physiology, which brought <\/span>a great deal of<\/span> scientific success.<\/span><\/p>\n

A<\/span>ccording to <\/span>Dr. L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Hunyady, the most important result <\/span>of his 16 years of leadership activities is<\/span> that those <\/span>colleagues <\/span>who <\/span>returned<\/span> home to the <\/span>department<\/span> from abroad after their postdoctoral work <\/span>are still working at the department<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

P\u00e1lma Dobozi
\nPhoto: Istv\u00e1n Bielik, Attila Kov\u00e1cs \u2013 Semmelweis University, Andr\u00e1s Dim\u00e9ny
\nTranslation: Katalin Ill\u00e9s-Romh\u00e1nyi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The lecture series provide an insight to the scientific achievements of current and former teachers, researchers of the department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101126,"featured_media":24911,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[325],"class_list":["post-24915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24915"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24922,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24915\/revisions\/24922"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}