Chamber: Large donations vital to project
Continued from page 1
John Halliwill described the chamber
as “officially fully functional and
ready to go for our summer research
projects.” He and Chris Minson, re
cently promoted to the rank of associ
ate professor of human physiology, are
co-directors of the University’s Exercise
and Environmental Physiology
Laboratories. They plan to use the
chamber for research regarding the hu
man body’s response to different envi
ronmental conditions.
Chambers that control tempera
ture, humidity or oxygen exist in var
ious places around the country, but
the University’s chamber is rare in
that it simultaneously controls all
three variables, Minson said. Halli
will added that the chamber also has
lamps to simulate the sun’s
radiant energy.
While a person exercises on the
chamber’s treadmill or stationary bicy
cle, his or her oxygen consumption,
carbon dioxide production, core body
temperature, cardiac output and respi
ration are measured. For specific ex
periments, instruments in the chamber
can also measure a person’s skin blood
flow, skin temperature, cooling rate or
blood flow to various organs.
The chamber cost $300,000 to build.
A Department of Defense grant fund
ed $250,000, and the rest came from
private donations, Minson said.
“The army and Department of De
fense have had a long-standing inter
est in environmental physiology as it
relates to soldiers in the field,” Halliwill
said. He later added that the Depart
ment of Defense grant has no strings
attached and is intended to get
students excited about science, re
gardless of whether it directly bene
fits the Department of Defense.
Halliwill said he and Minson had
been planning the chamber since he
was hired in 2002. They began
searching for funding sources and
found out about the Department of
Defense grant two weeks before its
application deadline in August 2003.
Seven or eight months later, they re
ceived the funds, and began design
ing and building the chamber.
“Short of hiring the two faculty
who are responsible, I would rank it
right up there with one of the most
significant events that have occurred
over the past five to 10 years,” human
physiology department head Gary
Klug said.
Minson said that while a person’s
usual activity level might not be ap
parent from initial observation, a
workout in the chamber can quickly
provide that information. For exam
ple, people who don’t exercise can
have coronary artery disease and
not know it because they never
stress their body to the point that
the effects of the disease would
be obvious.
“Tiying to study the human body
at rest doesn’t give us a lot of
information,” Minson said. “When
we place challenges on the body,
then we can understand how
physiology works.”
Because the chamber just opened,
it has not yet been used for anything
other than basic research. However,
future collaborations involving medi
cine, athletics and clothing compa
nies are possible.
“There are certain situations
where we can test certain things
more specifically than physicians
can,” Minson said.
For instance, Minson said people
faint for different reasons that can
be related to oxygen levels or tem
perature conditions, and tests
could be performed on a person in
the chamber to determine the cause
of his or her fainting.
Minson said the University athlet
ic department once approached
the researchers in search of a ther
mal chamber to prepare football
players for a game at the University
of Missouri.
“They called Nike and (Nike)
said, ‘You’ve got one right on your
campus,’” Minson said.
Minson said some athletic cloth
ing companies have expressed inter
est in using the chamber to test the
function of their products under
various conditions.
Despite these opportunities, Min
son said, “We want to do our re
search and that’s got to come first.”
With a National Institutes of
Health-funded grant, Halliwill plans
to use the chamber to study the re
lationship between sleep apnea and
hypertension. He will use the cham
ber’s high altitude settings to
simulate the oxygen deprivation of
sleep apnea, when a person be
comes temporarily unable to
breathe while sleeping. Minson re
searches changes in the skin during
environmental heat stress.
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