Gordon S Mitchell, Ph.D.

Dr. Mitchell joined the University of Florida in 2015 as a Preeminence Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Physical Therapy and McKnight Brain Institute. He founded and directs the UF Center for Breathing Research and Therapeutics (BREATHE) and the NIH-funded graduate and postdoctoral training program of the same name. A major focus of BREATHE is to understand and treat impaired breathing and airway defense (swallowing/cough) caused by neuromuscular injury or disease. Dr. Mitchell also serves as Deputy Director of the UF McKnight Brain Institute. For the past three decades, Dr. Mitchell pioneered studies of neuroplasticity in the neural system controlling breathing. Areas of active investigation include: intracellular and intercellular mechanisms of long-lasting respiratory motor plasticity triggered by repeated exposure to brief episodes of low oxygen (intermittent hypoxia), the ability to harness that intermittent hypoxia-induced spinal plasticity to treat respiratory and non-respiratory paralysis following spinal injury and during motor neuron disease (ALS), cell-based strategies to treat breathing deficits, and the impact of systemic inflammation on breathing and its control. Investigations span intracellular, intercellular and physiological systems level mechanisms, and translation to humans with acquired or neurodegenerative neurological disorders (SCI and ALS). Dr. Mitchell grew up in California where he received his B.S. (Biological Sciences) and PhD (Developmental and Cell Biology) degrees from the University of California at Irvine. After two years of post-doctoral training at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine in Goettingen, Germany, he moved to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After one year as a postdoc, Dr. Mitchell became an Assistant Professor in 1981, and then the ranks to become Professor and Chair of the Department of Comparative Biosciences (17 years) and director of the NIH funded Respiratory Neurobiology Training Program (14 years). He chose to leave the University of Wisconsin for the opportunity to join the University of Florida and create the BREATHE Center. Dr. Mitchell has been recognized for his research and teaching accomplishments, including a National Institutes of Health MERIT Award, the Norden Distinguished Teacher Award, the Pfizer Research Award on multiple occasions, the Steenbock Professorship for Behavioral and Neural Science, and distinguished lectureships from the Society for Neuroscience (SFN), American Physiological Society (APS), Association of Chairs of Departments of Physiology (ACDP), American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA), and the Oxford Conference for Modeling and the Control of Breathing.

Research interests: As one of the first to recognize the importance of neuroplasticity in the neural control of breathing, Dr. Mitchell has spent decades studying neuroplasticity in respiratory (and more recently non-respiratory) motor systems. His primary research interests concern intracellular and intercellular (neuron/microglial) mechanisms regulating spinal motor plasticity following acute intermittent hypoxia (AIH), and efforts to harness intermittent hypoxia-induced plasticity to treat devastating clinical disorders that compromise breathing, such as cervical spinal cord injury and ALS. His approach spans from cellular/molecular studies to integrative physiology and pathophysiology in rodent models to human clinical trials of injury/disease .

Funding and collaborations: Dr. Mitchell has maintained an active, extramurally funded research program with continuous NIH funding since 1983, including NHLBI Research Career Development and MERIT awards along the way. He is currently PI of 3 NHLBI-funded R01s that focus on: 1) (intra)cellular mechanisms of AIH-induced phrenic motor plasticity; 2) intercellular mechanisms whereby normal or inflamed microglia regulate phrenic motor plasticity; and 3) optimizing AIH protocols to maximize plasticity and therapeutic efficacy in rodent models of cervical SCI. Each grant feeds directly into ongoing clinical trials of AIH to restore breathing ability (and limb function) in people living with chronic SCI or ALS. He is also co-PI or co-investigator on additional grants from the NIH (R01, R21), Department of Defense and Craig H. Neilsen Foundation. Through these funded studies, he maintains collaborations with outstanding scientists that have expertise in respiratory physiology, cell/molecular neurobiology, rodent models of neural injury/disease, human physiology and clinical trials of therapeutic AIH. For example, in collaboration with Dr. Emily Fox, Director of Neuromuscular Research at Brooks Rehabilitation, he co-directs two DoD-funded clinical trials of combined AIH with respiratory strength training to rehabilitate breathing in people with chronic SCI. He also maintains collaborations concerning: 1) therapeutic AIH as a means of restoring breathing ability in human ALS (PI Barbara Smith)); and 2) walking ability (Dr. Randy Trumbower, Spaulding/Harvard, Boston) and 3) arm/hand function (Monica Perez, Milap Sandhu and W. Zev Rymer, Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, Chicago) in people with chronic SCI. Thus, his research program operates as a “translational flywheel”: basic science studies inform human clinical trials, which clarify the need for additional research.

Scholarly publications: Over the past 4 decades, Dr. Mitchell has published 313 manuscripts in major, peer-reviewed scientific journals and earned an H-index of 77 and an i10-index of 268 with over 20-thousand citations of his work; in the past 5 years.

Dr. Mitchell currently directs Breathing Research and Therapeutics (BREATHE) Training Program. He has mentored >30 postdoctoral trainees, supervised >30 graduate students, and served on >60 additional graduate thesis committees. He currently supervises 4 graduate students and 3 postdocs, while co-mentoring 3 other postdoctoral trainees. His trainees have been highly successful, with many winning awards from national or international organizations for research excellence. Over 30 former trainees are now faculty at academic institutions, many with extramurally funded research programs.

Recognition and service: Dr. Mitchell has contributed to the larger academic community through university, national and international service (eg. NIH study sections). With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, he founded the International Online Seminar Series on the Control of Breathing and Airway Defense (CoBAD). He also founded the Neurotherapeutic AIH Consortium in 2016, an international group aiming to translate therapeutic AIH to a phase III clinical trial. Under his direction, the UF BREATHE Center organized consortium workshops in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 focused on advancing “A roadmap to clinical translation: therapeutic intermittent hypoxia and recovery of motor function with chronic, incomplete SCI”.

• ALS
• Intermittent hypoxia
• Neuroplasticity
• Respiratory physiology
• Sleep apnea
• Spinal cord injury rehabilitation

0000-0002-8489-1861