Spokane sleep research candidates to present

SPOKANE, Wash. — Greg Belenky and Scott Campbell, candidates for a sleep research position with the Spokane Alliance for Medical Research, will visit Spokane this month to deliver public lectures on their sleep research as part of the interview process.

The lectures are free and open to the public. The candidates will also meet with area researchers and practitioners who specialize in sleep and tour area sleep clinics.

Dr. Belenky, a colonel in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. and director of the Division of Neuroscience at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, will give his lecture Friday, April 23. The talk, “Managing Sleep to Sustain Performance,” will be from noon to 1:15 p.m. in Spokane’s Deaconess Health and Education Center, 910 W. Fifth Ave., Room 268.

Belenky’s presentation will describe studies he and his colleagues at Walter Reed are conducting on the neurobiology of sleep and performance, the effects of sleep restriction and subsequent recovery on performance, and contributions to the Army’s sleep management system.

He holds a number of patents on the Sleep Watch, the core of the U.S. Army’s developing sleep management system. The watch is a tool that enables commanders to effectively manage sleep to sustain performance in the operational environment.

Dr. Campbell, director of the Laboratory of Human Chronobiology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and psychology professor in the Department of Psychiatry, will speak Thursday, April 29. His lecture, “Napping as Compensation for Age-Related Sleep Loss: Implications for Basic and Clinical Research,” will be from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the Deaconess Health and Education Center, Room 265.

Campbell’s presentation will examine the biological basis of napping behavior in humans and explore its place within the human circadian sleep/wake system. His findings explore the possible use of napping to enhance 24-hour sleep amounts in older individuals who are often unable to get adequate sleep at night. Implications of these findings will be discussed from the perspective of sleep need and its relationship to aging.

He holds a patent with a co-investigator for a method of resetting the phase of the human circadian clock and for enhancing alertness and performance in humans. Campbell has an application pending for another patent dealing with REM (rapid eye movement) sleep augmentation. He is the author of a number of book chapters and peer-reviewed publications. He received the W.R. Hess Prize in sleep research from the European Sleep Research Society in 1986.

Belenky holds a medical degree from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Yale University. He is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the Sleep Research Society and the European Sleep Research Society, and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Sleep Foundation. During the Gulf War (1990-91), Belenky served as regimental psychiatrist for the U.S. Army’s Second Armored Cavalry Regiment. He has authored multiple journal articles and book chapters.

Campbell received a doctorate in experimental and cognitive psychology from the University of Florida in 1981 and completed post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard Medical School, the Max-Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Munich, Germany, and the University of California, San Diego, prior to receiving a research faculty appointment at UCSD in 1986. He served as director and CEO of the Institute for Circadian Physiology, a Boston-based nonprofit research institution. In 1990, Campbell joined the faculty of Cornell Medical School.

The Spokane Alliance for Medical Research represents collaboration between private and state colleges and universities, the medical health service and research centers in Spokane and public and private biotechnology research and development centers and institutes in Spokane and the Inland Northwest. Its purpose is to conduct competitively funded biomedical research in the Spokane region that builds upon strong, competitively funded and focused research programs at northwest universities or research institutions. Research conducted under auspices of SAMR is intended to enhance clinical programs ongoing in the Spokane medical community, provide research partnership opportunities for Spokane clinicians, contribute to an enhanced reputation for these selected programs and provide opportunities for economic development in the Spokane region.

WSU is a partner in SAMR and Dennis Dyck, associate dean for research at WSU Spokane, serves as SAMR’s coordinator. WSU Spokane is home to a number of health sciences programs in research, teaching and service.

With more than $150 million in annual research expenditures, WSU is among the nation’s premier research institutions. As part of the university’s extensive research portfolio, researchers examine health science issues ranging from diabetes and the world’s food supply to animal well-being and medication use through the use of state-of-the-art laboratories, clinical studies and community partnerships.

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