Russell Foster

While at the University of Virginia, Foster and Menaker performed experiments where the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) was tested by neural transplantation of donor's SCN to a recipient with an ablated SCN. In the experiment, the donor was a mutant strain of hamster with a shortened circadian period. The recipient was a wild-type hamster. Transplantation was done the other way around as well, with wild-type hamster as the donor and mutant strain hamster as the recipient. After the transplantation, the formerly wild-type hamster displayed a shortened period which resembled the mutant, and the mutant-strain hamster showed normal period. The SCN restored rhythm to arrhythmic recipients, which afterwards always exhibited the circadian period of the donor. This result led to the conclusion that the SCN is sufficient and necessary for mammalian circadian rhythms.^[13]

In 1991, Foster and his colleagues provided evidence that rods and cones are not necessary for entrainment of an animal to light.^[14] In this experiment, Foster gave light pulses to retinally degenerative mice. These mice were homozygous for the rdallele and were shown to have no rods in their retina. Only a few cones were found to remain in the retina. To study the effects of light entrainment, magnitude of phase shift of locomotor activity was measured. The results showed that both mice with normal retina and mice with degenerate retina showed similar entrainment patterns. Foster hypothesized that circadian photoreception occurs with a small number of cones without an outer layer or that an unrecognised class of photoreceptive cells are present.

In 1999, Foster studied light entrainment on mice without cones or both rods and cones.^[15] Mice without cones or without both photoreceptive cells (rd/rd cl allele) still entrained to light. Meanwhile, mice with eyes removed could not entrain to light. Foster concluded that rods and cones are unnecessary for entrainment to light, and that the murine eye contains additional photoreceptive cell types. Later studies showed that melanopsin expressing photoreceptive retinal ganglion cells (pGRCs) were accountable for non-rod, non-cone entrainment to light.^[16][17]

Foster es coautor, junto con el escritor y locutor Leon Kreitzman, de dos libros de divulgación científica sobre ritmos circadianos : Ritmos de la vida: Los relojes biológicos que controlan la vida diaria de todos los seres vivos ^{[ 18 ] [ 19 ]} y Estaciones de la vida: Los ritmos biológicos que permiten a los seres vivos prosperar y sobrevivir . ^{[ 20 ]} También es coautor de un libro titulado Sueño: una breve introducción. ^{[ 21 ]} Escribió Tiempo de vida  : La nueva ciencia del reloj biológico y cómo puede revolucionar el sueño y la salud. ^{[ 22 ]}

Foster fue elegido miembro de la Royal Society (FRS) en 2008 ^{[ 4 ]} y miembro de la Academia de Ciencias Médicas (FMedSci) en 2013. ^{[ 23 ]}

Foster fue nombrado Comendador de la Orden del Imperio Británico (CBE) en la lista de honores de Año Nuevo de 2015 por sus servicios a la ciencia. ^{[ 24 ] [ 25 ]}

Foster ha recibido reconocimiento internacional por sus contribuciones al descubrimiento de las células ganglionares fotosensibles, entre las que se incluyen:

• Premio Honma (Japón, 1997) ^{[ 26 ]}
• Premio David G. Cogan (EE. UU., 2001) ^{[ 27 ]}
• Medalla Científica de la Sociedad Zoológica de Londres (Reino Unido, 2000) ^{[ 28 ]}
• Medalla Edridge Green (Real Colegio de Oftalmólogos, Reino Unido, 2005) ^{[ 28 ]}
• Premio Peter C. Farrell en Medicina del Sueño (2015) ^{[ 29 ]}
• Premio Internacional de Ciencias Nikken por su experiencia en la neurociencia del sueño. (2015) ^{[ 30 ]}
• Premio a la Luz Natural 2020, a la Investigación sobre la Luz Natural.