Autor: David Gross

Dr. David R. Gross entered private veterinary practice after earning the DVM degree from Colorado State University in 1960. In 1974 he was awarded the Ph D degree in physiology from the Ohio State University beginning a 36-year career in academics that culminated as professor and head of the Department of Veterinary Biosciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Gross’ research career encompassed 58 funded projects totaling over $5.5 million and 91 papers published in refereed journals using a wide variety of animal models. Ironically his three most-cited research papers received no external funding. He and his colleagues showed that feeding dietary cholesterol to rabbits induced Alzheimer’s-like lesions in the brain. Their work also showed that surgery involving cardiopulmonary bypass resulted in Alzheimer’s-like brain lesions in pigs. With another group of colleagues he helped pioneer minimally invasive coronary artery bypass grafting techniques using the pig as a model.