John P. Merrill John P. Merrill John Putnam Merrill (March 10, 1917 – April 14, 1984) was an American physician and medical researcher. He led the team which performed the world's first successful kidney transplant. He generally credited as the "father of nephrology" or "the founder of nephrology," which is the scientific study of the kidney and its diseases. Merrill was born in 1917 in Hartford, Connecticut. After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1938, he attended the Harvard Medical School. He graduated in 1942; and he was an intern at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. During World War II, he served for four
Circumventricular organs an integral part of neuroendocrine function. The highly permeable capillaries allow the CVOs to act as an alternative route for peptides and hormones in the neural tissue to sample from and secrete to circulating blood. CVOs also have roles in body fluid regulation, cardiovascular functions, immune responses, thirst, feeding behavior and reproductive behavior. CVOs can be classified as either sensory or secretory organs serving homeostatic functions and body water balance. The sensory organs include the area postrema (AP), the subfornical organ (SFO) and the vascular organ of lamina terminalis, all having the ability to sense signals in blood, then pass