Davenport is selected to receive UF Research Foundation professorship

Paul Davenport, Ph.D., a University of Florida physiologist whose work on respiratory function has benefited asthmatic children, U.S. Navy divers and the actor Christopher Reeve, among others, has received a UF Research Foundation professorship.

Sponsored by the university’s Division of Sponsored Research, the professorships are awarded to tenured faculty members campuswide for distinguished research and scholarship. The honor includes a $5,000 salary increase each year for three years, and a one-time $3,000 award for research support.

Davenport, a professor in the UF College of Veterinary Medicine’s department of physiological sciences, focuses on the study of human breathing and respiratory rehabilitation. He currently is working on respiratory rehabilitation of patients with spinal injuries. In collaboration with UF faculty members Danny Martin, Ph.D., of the College of Health Professions, Paul Reier, Ph.D., of the College of Medicine, and Christine Sapienza, Ph.D., of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Davenport has provided respiratory muscle strengthening exercises to patients requiring mechanical ventilators, including Christopher Reeve. Davenport and Martin are acknowledged by Reeve in his new book, “Nothing is Impossible.”

Davenport also is working on the brain processes related to the sensation of distress when breathing is obstructed, the sensations related to cough, and respiratory-related activity in the cerebral cortex in asthmatic patients.

Davenport developed the widely used Respiratory-Related Evoked Potential test at UF in 1986 in collaboration with College of Medicine researchers William Friedman, M.D., and Floyd Thompson, Ph.D. The test involves the delivery of different mechanical loads — impediments to breathing — to a patient through a manifold-like device. Researchers measure a patient’s brain-wave activity, and breathing responses are measured as the loads are delivered at different times and levels of difficulty. Davenport has used this test to identify children at risk for a life-threatening asthmatic attack due to a deficit in their sensory processing of breathing difficulty.

His work with these children has been supported by the American Lung Association of Florida and the National Institutes of Health. This past year, Davenport and his colleagues received a U.S. patent for a noninvasive mechanical device that relieves breathlessness in emphysema patients without the use of medication. The researchers have found that when some patients use the device, they are able to increase their activity level without the severe breathlessness they would normally experience.

Davenport, Martin and Sapienza have another U.S. patent under review for a device that increases the strength of muscles used for breathing. They have used the device to increase breathing strength in high school band students, professional vocalists, patients with multiple sclerosis or spinal injuries, and U.S. Navy divers. In 2001, Davenport received the Pfizer Award for Research Excellence at UF’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

Davenport has been a member of UF’s faculty since 1981.