Franklin Endowed Lecture
The Franklin Endowed Lecture was created by the family and friends of Dean Franklin, former Director of Dalton Cadiovascular Research Center (1980-1990), to commemorate Mr. Franklin's many contributions to cardiovascular science by highlighting new innovations and research in the field.
2023 - 9th Franklin Endowed Lecture
2018 - 8th Franklin Endowed Lecture
2017 - 7th Franklin Endowed Lecture
2016 - 6th Franklin Endowed Lecture
2014 - 5th Franklin Endowed Lecture
2012 - 4th Franklin Endowed Lecture
2011 - 3rd Franklin Endowed Lecture
2009 - 2nd Franklin Endowed Lecture
2008 - Inaugural Franklin Endowed Lecture
Dean was an exceptionally innovative biophysicist who, in collaboration with his colleague and lifelong friend Dr. Robert Van Citters, pioneered the development of in vivo instrumentation and conscious animal models. This allowed the successful pursuit of a variety of unanswered physiologic questions in conscious instrumented animals including hemodynamics, cardiac function, exercise and coronary artery disease.
Among Dean's many breakthroughs and inventions were:
- Invention of the ultrasonic differential transit-time flowmeter
- Invention of the ultrasonic Doppler flowmeter
- First measurement of instantaneous cardiac dimensions by ultrasound (sonomicrometer)
- First telemetry of cardiovascular signals from unrestrained conscious animals
- Aortic blood flow from a boxer dog at the San Diego Zoo
- First successful application of fully implantable pressure transducers in conscious animals
- Baboons and giraffes in Kenya, Africa
- Characterization of the hemodynamic response to extreme exercise
- Progression from dogs on the first prototype Quinton treadmill, to dogs running behind a VW bus, to the ultimate athletes - Alaskan Sled Dogs
- Development of an intermittent coronary occlusion model of coronary collateral circulation in response to ischemia in dogs
Technology invented by Dean during his early work has since been developed into the myriad of nonclinical and clinical applications of ultrasound and telemetry that are in widespread use today.
Suffice it to say, anyone who has ever benefited from biomedical instrumentation, diagnostic ultrasound and/or telemetry in human medicine or in animal research owes the existence of these technologies to Dean Franklin's genius.
The Dean Franklin Young Investigator Award, sponsored by Data Sciences International (DSI), was established to recognize Dean Franklin's role in the field and is awarded to post-doctoral scientists or junior faculty members who are pursuing in vivo physiological research and in the process of establishing an independent laboratory. It pays a travel award to the recipient to attend the annual Experimental Biology meeting to present their work and grants a DSI instrumentation starter kit (~$20,000).
