Kevin J. Tracey

Kevin J. Tracey, a scientist and inventor, was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana on 10 December 1957. He is President of the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research and Professor and President of the Elmezzi Graduate School of Molecular Medicine in Manhasset, New York.

Education
Kevin J. Tracey received his B.S. in Chemistry from Boston College in 1979 and his M.D. from Boston University in 1983. From 1983 to 1992 he trained in neurosurgery at the New York Hospital/Cornell University under Prof. Russel Patterson. During this time he was also a guest investigator at Rockefeller University.

Academic appointments
In 1992, Tracey moved to the North Shore-LIJ Health System, in Manhasset, New York, where he practiced neurosurgery and established the Laboratory of Biomedical Science. He was the founding program director for the General Clinical Research Center, which received designation from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2001. In 2005 he was appointed President of the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research and Professor and President of the Elmezzi Graduate School of Molecular Medicine in Manhasset, New York. Tracey also became Associate Dean for Research at the Hofstra North Shore LIJ School of Medicine at Hofstra University in 2008.

Principal scientific contributions
Tracey studies the molecular basis of inflammation and mechanisms through which neural reflexes control immune responses. In 1986 he and colleagues described the direct inflammatory activity of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF). The following year later they reported that it is possible to use monoclonal antibodies against TNF as a therapeutic agent to prevent inflammation. In 1999, his laboratory group reported that HMGB1, a protein previously known only as a transcription factor, is an inflammatory mediator and drug target. In 2000, Tracey discovered the Inflammatory Reflex, a neural circuit that controls important immune responses, including the production of TNF, HMGB1, and other cytokines. The neurophysiological mechanism of this pathway is that action potentials transmitted in the vagus nerve activate the release of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter, that interacts with alpha-7 nicotinic receptors expressed on the cell surface of macrophages that produce TNF and other cytokines in spleen. The interaction of acetylcholine with alpha-7 nicotinic receptors prevents cytokine release by downregulating nuclear activation of NFkB. These vagus nerve signals provide a brake on the cytokine response, which protects the host against organ damage caused by unregulated or excessive cytokine release. Application of electrodes to stimulate the vagus nerve (vagus nerve stimulation) protects against damaging inflammation in experimental arthritis, colitis, ischemia, myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, and other conditions. The importance of the inflammatory reflex in controlling inflammation establishes the concept that the immune system does not function autonomously, but rather its output is coordinated by physiological units of reflex action.

Awards and honors

 * Kohler-ICM Award of the German Society of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, 2010
 * Honorary doctorate from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, 2009
 * Association of American Physicians, 2009
 * DeWitt Stetten lectureship National Institutes of Health, 2007
 * Annual Clinical Science Lectureship Karolinska Institute, 2002
 * Invited lectureships at Harvard, Yale, The Rockefeller University, The Scripps Institute and the University of Texas Southwestern
 * Co-chair of the first international scientific congress addressing "The Inflammatory Reflex", a Nobel Symposium of the Karolinska Institute, 2004
 * Co-chair of the "First HMGB1 Cytokine World Congress" in Saltsjöbaden, Sweden, in 2003
 * Editor in Chief: Molecular Medicine, and Advisory Editor: Journal of Experimental Medicine
 * American Society of Clinical Investigation (2001)
 * Highly Cited Researcher in Immunology.

Book
Tracey's book Fatal Sequence: The Killer Within, recounts the course of a young patient with sepsis, a case that influenced Tracey's research.

Multimedia

 * "Physiology and Immunology of the Cholinergic Anti-Inflammatory Pathway" Stetten Lecture Videocast, October 24, 2007
 * "Nervous System/Immune System Connection" Stetten Podcast Interview, November 2, 2007
 * "The Inflammatory Reflex" Centricity Series Video Talk, December 17, 2007
 * NIGMS, September 2010.