RICHARD MUESING

Personal : Born - September 6, 1938; Married January 25, 1963; No children

1960-1962 - Research Technician: Hormel Institute, Austin, MN. - Effects of dietary fatty acid unsaturation on blood cholesterol and phospholipids in rats.

1962-1967 - Graduate Study and Thesis Research: MS (1962-1964) - Department of Biochemistry, University of IL. Ph.D. (1964-1967) - Lipid Research Division, Food Science Department, University of IL. Physio-biochemical study of the interaction of the hydrophobic probe, anilinonapthalene sulfonate, with purified human low- and high-density lipoproteins.

1967-1973 - Post-doctoral Study: Lipid Research Laboratory of the VA Hospital and University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI. - Regulation of fatty acid and cholesterol metabolism in rats during fasting and refeeding. Physio-biochemical study of the regulation of enzyme activities, and subunit interactions, of the multienzyme complex, pigeon liver fatty acid synthetase.

1973-2001 - Director of the Lipid Research Clinic Laboratory: Department of Medicine, The George Washington University, Washington, DC. - The laboratory was one of 10 in the US and Canada specifically established by the National Institutes of Health to act as the analytical arm for the Primary Prevention Trial, 1974-1984. This was the first large scale randomized clinical trial to demonstrate in man that lowering blood cholesterol with a nonabsorbed drug significantly decreased the incidence of heart disease. A prerequisite for the clinical trial was achieving a high degree of accuracy, precision, and inter-laboratory comparability in the analysis of lipoprotein cholesterol and triglycerides. This was achieved through the use of common methodologies and instrumentation, and rigorous standardization, quality control and surveillance procedures in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control. These quality control methodologies established a basis for achieving comparability in current laboratory measurements of many common medically-related blood constituents.

Other research included clinical trials of the efficacy of new cholesterol-lowering drugs; clinical studies of the effects of estrogen and progestogen constituents of oral contraceptives, and of hormone replacement therapy in postmenopausal women, on lipoprotein lipid (fats) and apoprotein levels and lipoprotein composition; studies of the acute postprandial effects of different dietary fats on lipoprotein levels and composition; and most recently, effects of nucleotide and protease inhibitors in patients with HIV/AIDS on lipoproteins. Research in collaboration with the Lipid Nutritional Laboratory of the USDA included controlled-diet studies of the effects of alcohol, hormone replacement, different dietary fats, dietary trans-fatty acids, and high vs low fat diets, on blood lipoprotein lipid and apoprotein levels, and other indicators of cardiovascular disease risk factors.

2001 - Present: Retired, 416 Nichols Court, St. Peter, MN, 56082 (in the Minnesota River Valley). Moved from D.C. area (Springfield, VA) 3 weeks before 9/11. - Hobbies include singing barbershop harmony, backyard birding and birdhouse construction for bluebird nesting, woodworking projects, furniture refurbishing and refinishing, recipe collection and cooking, and US traveling. Was a volunteer in 2003, and likely in future, for watershed stream water quality monitoring.