{"id":105550,"date":"2017-02-03T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T13:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=105550"},"modified":"2025-01-10T12:57:29","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T17:57:29","slug":"seven-things-about-papaioanou-professor-ryan-bavis-and-his-research-on-how-babies-breathe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2017\/02\/03\/seven-things-about-papaioanou-professor-ryan-bavis-and-his-research-on-how-babies-breathe\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven things about Ryan Bavis\u2019 research on oxygen’s effects on how babies breathe"},"content":{"rendered":"

A member of the Bates faculty since 2003, Ryan Bavis became the second holder of the Helen A. Papaioanou Professorship in Biological Sciences this year, succeeding Pam Baker \u201969, who retired in 2013.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 20, the college celebrated Bavis\u2019 appointment with an afternoon lecture, followed by an evening reception and dinner. Among the guests were Ralph Perry \u201951 and his wife, Mary Louise Seldenfleur, whose gift established the professorship.<\/p>\n

A respiratory physiologist, Bavis researches how the brain controls breathing and, in particular, how the environment can alter how our breathing changes as we mature. His research has won two grants from the National Institutes of Health’s Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute as well as two Maine INBRE<\/a> awards.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis research has significant implications for our understanding of how humans \u2014 such as premature babies \u2014 develop in settings where their access to oxygen is too low or too high,\u201d said Dean of the Faculty Matt Auer in introducing Bavis\u2019 talk.<\/p>\n

Here are seven things we learned by spending some time listening to Bavis discuss his research.<\/p>\n

1. His first research thrust didn\u2019t get off the ground.<\/h5>\n

As a doctoral student at the University of Montana, Bavis wrote his dissertation on the \u201cPhysiological Consequences of Exposure to Elevated Carbon Dioxide During Development in Birds.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was interested in burrowing birds, which are \u201cless sensitive to changes in oxygen and carbon dioxide in the air\u201d than other birds, as he explained during his talk. \u201cI was interested in how much is environmental and how much is genetic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSurprisingly,\u201d he said with characteristic dry wit, \u201cthere aren\u2019t many postdoc opportunities in labs where burrowing birds are the model.\u201d So he let his bird idea fly away (at least for now).<\/p>\n

2. His successful current research is the result of a \u201chappy accident.\u201d<\/h5>\n

\u201cI did not expect to be doing this,\u201d said Bavis of his current research.<\/p>\n

For his postdoc, Bavis found a lab that was looking at the intersection of breathing control with \u201cplasticity,\u201d the ability of an organism to change in response to its environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that decision has fueled my grants ever since.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The lab was in the Department of Comparative Biosciences at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine. \u201cThey\u2019d been using a rat model to examine hyperoxia,\u201d which is when an animal\u2019s tissues get too much oxygen. \u201cThey had looked at the long-term effects of hyperoxia but thought it was a dead end and didn\u2019t want to continue,\u201d Bavis said.<\/p>\n

Bavis saw value in using the same rat model but with a different question in mind.<\/p>\n

\"web-170120_Bavis_Papaioanou_0207\"<\/a>

Ryan Bavis delivers a talk on “Learning to Breathe in a New World: The Complicated Role of Oxygen in Postnatal Development\u201d during the celebration of his appointment as the Helen A. Papaioanou Professor in Biological Sciences on Jan. 20, 2017, in Pettengill Hall. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cMy idea was to look at changes in the breathing of babies themselves, since some forms of plasticity would only be evident in that age group and not persist into adulthood,\u201d he said. \u201cThat decision has fueled my grants ever since,\u201d not to mention the early-career Giles F. Filley Memorial Award for Excellence in Respiratory Physiology and Medicine from the American Physiological Society, which Bavis received in 2006.<\/p>\n

When exposed to low oxygen (hypoxia) in the first few weeks of life, a baby will initially breathe harder \u2014 as we would \u2014 but will not sustain that high level of breathing as we would. The immature breathing is called the \u201cbiphasic hypoxic response.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bavis\u2019 lab looks at myriad questions about the biphasic hypoxic response, how it matures to an adult\u2019s sustained response, and how a high- or low-oxygen environment affects all that.<\/p>\n

3. He involves lots of students in his research (and has won an award for that).<\/h5>\n

\u201cMy work has been supported by an army of students, and some are here today,\u201d said Bavis, sweeping an arm toward the audience.<\/p>\n

For the quality of how he\u2019s mentored that army, Bavis received a 2016 Mentor Award from the Council on Undergraduate Research’s Biology Division.<\/p>\n

CUR quoted his students, who praised Bavis for teaching them that \u201cscience is an ever-evolving collection of facts, ideas, and windows of opportunity\u201d and that \u201clife works out in its own way and if you put your mind to it, you can reach your own goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some Bavis numbers:<\/p>\n