Gregory Chinn, MD, PhD, Appointed as 2021-2023 Severinghaus Assistant Professor

Greg Chinn, MD, PhD, speaking at Anesthesia Research Day in 2016

We are pleased to announce that the department has named Gregory Chinn, MD, PhD, as a Severinghaus Assistant Professor for academic years 2021-2023. Named for the late John Severinghaus, MD, this title honors an Assistant Professor in the department whose research shows exciting promise and relevance to problems in human medicine. 

Greg Chinn chatting with Elizabeth Whitlock and John Feiner at Anesthesia Research Day in 2016Dr. Chinn joined the faculty in 2020 after completing research training in the Research Scholars Track of the anesthesia residency and on the department’s T32 training grant. He received a FAER Mentored Research Training Grant for his project Physiologic and Cellular Mechanisms of Neonatal GABA Mediated Neurotoxicity and has published his research on early life anesthesia neurotoxicity in leading anesthesiology journals. Dr. Chinn is the Chair of the department’s Visiting Speakers Committee and leads community building initiatives for Research Track residents. His primary research mentor is Jeffrey Sall.

John Severinghaus, Pioneer of Anesthesia and Medicine:

John W. Severinghaus, MD, profile as he tinkers with a blood gas analysis machineAs one of our first recruits and longest standing faculty members, Dr. John W. Severinghaus had an enormous impact on the UCSF Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care. Originally a physicist, the man his friend Ted Eger called a “master tinkerer” was behind some of the most significant advances in anesthesiology and medicine, including the invention of the first 3-function blood gas analysis machine, a system for mass spectrometry in the OR, and critical discoveries about the mysteries of acclimatization. His lab was a virtual petri dish for leading researchers and important research, where Robert Mitchell and Hans Loeschke made their discovery of the medullary area that regulates blood PCO2, keeping spinal fluid pH constant, and where, at Dr. Severinghaus’ behest, Ted Eger developed the concept for minimum alveolar concentration, or “MAC.” Read here to learn more about Dr. Severinghaus’ remarkable life and essential work

Previous Recipients: