The Robert Dunning Dripps Associate Professorship of Anesthesiology and Critical Care II
The Professorship was established in 1965 through the bequest of Grace Slack McNeil and Robert Lincoln McNeil, a 1904 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and President of McNeil Laboratories, to honor the achievements in the field of anesthesiology of Robert Dunning Dripps, MD (1911–1973), an esteemed alumnus of the Perelman School of Medicine Class of 1938.
Dr. Dripps joined the faculty of the Perelman School of Medicine in 1941. The Department of Anesthesia, originally a Division of the Department of Surgery, became an autonomous University Department in 1965. As Chairman of Anesthesiology until 1972, Dr. Dripps built an internationally acclaimed academic department, rooted in his firm belief that anesthesiology essentially was composed of clinical pharmacology and physiology and that training in those basic disciplines would produce superior anesthesiologists, teachers, and investigators. In 1972, he was appointed Vice President for Health Affairs by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Dripps co-authored a major textbook, Introduction to Anesthesia: The Principles of Safe Practice. He was named a Fellow of the Faculties of Anaesthetists of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of both Ireland (1970) and England (1972) and was a founding member of the Association of University Anesthesiologists (1953), serving as its President in 1957.
Current Chairholder
Alexander Proekt, MD, PhD
Dr. Proekt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care with joint appointments in the Departments of Physiology, Pharmacology, and Neuroscience. He is the co-director of Penn’s center for the NEuroscience of Unconsciousness and Reanimation Research ALliance (NEURRAL). He received the ASA’s Presidential Scholar prize for impactful early career work in 2021.
Dr. Proekt has extensive experience mentoring undergraduates, graduate, and MD/PhD students and has served as the PhD thesis advisor for six Neuroscience graduate and MD/PhD students. Dr. Proekt is interested in how processing of sensory stimuli is affected by the state of the brain. For this purpose, he deploys a combination of neurophysiological recordings performed in awake behaving animals, with two photon imaging of neuronal activity. His lab is also interested in developing novel computational techniques which yield interpretable models of observed brain dynamics.
The Proekt lab has demonstrated that the brain undergoes a number of abrupt state transitions while recovering from anesthesia, even when held at a constant anesthetic concentration and without external stimuli. He has shown that these transitions are sufficient to give rise to anesthetic hysteresis, and perhaps, delirium. Dr Proekt is currently the PI on three R01s and has been continuously NIH funded for 10 years. Dr Proekt works closely other trainers on the T32 including, Drs Cichon, Contreras, Kelz, and McKinsrty-Wu.