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Dr. Karsch received his undergraduate training from Juniata College, followed by the M.S. degree at the University of Maine and the Ph.D. degree in Animal Science from the University of Illinois under the guidance of Andrew Nalbandov. He pursued postdoctoral training at the University of Pittsburgh in the lab of Dr. Ernst Knobil, himself a trainee of Dr. Roy Greep, earning fellowships from the Ford Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. After three years of postdoctoral training, he initiated his independent research career in the Department of Pathology at the University of Michigan, eventually transferring to the Department of Physiology and rising through the ranks to full Professor.
Throughout his career, Dr. Karsch has been a leader in the field of neuroendocrinology. His focus has been on the hypothalamo-pituitary-gonadal axis. The careful hypothesis generation, experimental design and execution, and interpretation of data have resulted in a body of work that has stood the test of time, and still continues to grow. His early work on steroid feedback regulation of the gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) pulse generator was critical to the elucidation of the cyclical changes of the female reproductive cycle. This work also contributed substantially to our understanding of physiological changes in sensitivity to steroids, such as occur at puberty and with season, and our knowledge of how the circadian system and in particular melatonin pattern, interacts with the reproductive system to help synchronize seasonal change. He was central in the successful application of methodologies for the direct monitoring of neuropeptides in pituitary portal blood, and provided among the first clear descriptions of the pulsatile and surge modes of GnRH release, allowing central and pituitary feedback actions of steroids to be differentiated from one another. His more recent work has been on the interactions between the immune system and stress and the hypothalamo-pituitary-gonadal axis, elucidating key interactions among gonadal and adrenal steroids in the suppression of the reproductive system by stress at the hypothalamic and pituiitary levels.
The amount of knowledge his work has contributed to the endocrine field is truly vast, and all of top quality. This has been recognized by his peers by 35 years of continuous NIH funding and over 170 publications. Dr. Karsch’s work has also been recognized by numerous awards, including the Henry Pickering Bowditch Lectureship of the American Physiological Society, the Research Award of the Society for the Study of Reproduction, the Amoroso Award of the Society for the Study of Fertility in Great Britain, and multiple Fogarty Senior International Fellowship Awards.
In addition to the science emanating directly from his lab, Dr. Karsch has passed his superb scientific skills on to dozens of graduate and post-graduate trainees who have gone on to establish some of the foremost laboratories in neuroendocrine research today. Throughout his career, Dr. Karsch has maintained the highest standards for science and mentoring, and importantly also for ethics and collegiality. Dr. Karsch has further served the scientific community as an Editor of Endocrinology, on the editorial board of numerous journals and as a member of the Biochemical Endocrinology Study Section and review panels for the NSF and USDA. The scientific work alone merits recognition. The scientific work in the context of the other contributions is truly unique.
Based on this outstanding record of achievement, The Endocrine Society recognizes Fred J. Karsch as the recipient of the 2009 Roy O. Greep Award.
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