Case Western University
MD., Ph.D. Walter Boron is the David N. and Inez Myers/Antonio Scarpa Professor & Chairman of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Case Western Reserve University. He was born and raised in Elyria, Ohio, where his high-school biology teacher sparked an early interest in cellular and molecular physiology. Boron earned his AB summa cum laude in chemistry at Saint Louis University, and his MD and PhD (Physiology & Biophysics) at Washington University in St. Louis. He joined Yale University as a postdoctoral fellow with Emile Boulpaep in 1978, and remained there for the next 29 years, serving as Chairman of the Department of Cellular & Molecular Physiology for three 3-year terms (1989- 1998). In 2007 he returned to northeastern Ohio to assume his present position. Boron is the former President of the American Physiological Society (APS) and is currently Secretary-General of the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS). He is the former editor-in-chief of Physiological Reviews and Physiology. He and Emile Boulpaep co-edit the textbook Medical Physiology, now preparing for its third edition. Boron developed his life-long interest in acid-base transport and intracellular-pH regulation with Albert Roos (PhD mentor) and Paul De Weer, and his complementary interest in renal HCO3 transport with Boulpaep. His group focuses on three related areas: the molecular physiology of the Na -coupled HCO3− transporters, molecular CO2/HCO–3 sensors, and gas channels. Among Boron’s honors are selection as a Searle Scholar (1981-1984), the Young Investigator Award (American Society of Nephrology/American Heart Association, 1986), the Robert F. Pitts Award (IUPS, 1993), the Gottschalk Award (APS, 1998), an NIH MERIT Award (2002), the Homer Smith Award (ASN, 2005), the Sharpey-Schafer Award (The Physiological Society, 2008), Member of the US National Academy of Medicine, and the Palade Gold Medal (shared with William Catterall and Richard Tsien, Wayne State University, 2010).