2000 Animal Growth and Development Award

Ronald E. Allen

Ronald E. Allen was born in Abilene, Texas, and enrolled at Texas A&M University in 1968, majoring in Animal Science. He compiled an exceptional scholastic record and was recognized as the Outstanding Senior in the Department of Animal Science in 1972. He completed graduate study at Iowa State University in 1976, majoring in biochemistry, and after 1 year as a Muscular Dystrophy Postdoctoral Fellow, he joined the Faculty of the Departments of Animal Husbandry and of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Michigan State University in 1977. It was here that he began the research on skeletal muscle satellite cells that has gained him international renown in this field. In 1980, Dr. Allen moved to the University of Arizona, where he is now a Professor of Nutritional Sciences in the Muscle Biology Group.

Allen and his group were the first to show that rate of skeletal muscle satellite cell proliferation was regulated by fibroblast growth factor and that the insulin-like growth factors and insulin promote satellite cell differentiation in vitro. In 1995 Allen and his group discovered that hepatocyte growth factor alone would stimulate quiescent muscle satellite cells to proliferate. Subsequent studies have shown that hepatocyte growth factor is present in normal, adult skeletal muscle. These findings have opened new approaches to learning how satellite cell activity is regulated during skeletal muscle growth and repair.

Dr. Allen has throughout his career been active in supporting animal growth and development. He has on three different occasions served on the planning committee for the ASAS Growth Symposium. He has also served on the peer review panel that evaluates applications to the USDA National Research Initiative Competitive Grant Program on Improving Animal Growth and Development, in addition to serving as Panel Manager of this program in 1991. In 1998, he organized and co-chaired the first international conference on skeletal muscle satellite cells and a session on satellite cells at the Gordon Conference on Myogenesis. Allen has received over $2.3 million of support from agencies such as the NIH, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and the National Research Initiative and many invitations to give presentations at national and international conferences.