About Tony

Biography

I received my PhD from the University of London with Richard P. Michael, a pioneer in the field of primate behavioral neuroendocrinology. My post-doctoral studies were done with Ernst Knobil at the University of Pittsburgh, where as a key member of the Knobil team, we discovered that pulsatile GnRH stimulation of the pituitary was essential for driving sustained LH and FSH secretion. I was appointed to the Faculty at the University of Pittsburgh in 1978 and rose through the academic ranks to Full Professor in 1989. From 1985 until 2013 I served as Director of a multi-investigator NIH funded Center to study the physiology of reproduction. I also served as President of the International Neuroendocrine Federation from 2007-2010 and I was Co Editor in Chief of the recent 4th Edition of Knobil and Neill’s Physiology of Reproduction, a highly recognized source book in the field. For the last 35 years I have utilized non-human primate models to better understand human reproduction resulting in more than 150 peer reviewed publications. I am particularly interested in the neurobiology of puberty onset, the neuroendocrine control of the menstrual cycle and testis, the endocrine control of spermatogenesis and the cell biology underlying spermatogonial differentiation. My research on development has underlined the concept that puberty is triggered by a reawakening of pulsatile GnRH release; a mode of secretion that has been held in check since infancy by a neurobiological brake imposed upon the GnRH pulse generating neuronal network upstream from the GnRH neuron.

Selected Publications

Belchetz PE, Plant TM, Nakai Y, Keogh EJ and Knobil E (1978). Hypophysial responses to continuous and intermittent delivery of hypothalamic gonadotropin-releasing hormone. Science 202: 631-633.
Plant TM, Gay VL, Marshall GR and Arslan M (1989). Puberty in monkeys is triggered by chemical stimulation of the hypothalamus. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 86:2506-2510.
Shahab M, Mastronardi C, Seminara SB, Crowley WF, Ojeda SR and Plant TM (2005). Increased hypothalamic GPR54 signaling: a potential mechanism for initiation of puberty in primates. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102:2129-2134.
Plant TM, Ramaswamy S and DiPietro MJ (2006). Repetitive activation of hypothalamic G protein-coupled receptor 54 with intravenous pulses of kisspeptin in the juvenile monkey (Macaca mulatta) elicits a sustained train of gonadotropin-releasing hormone discharges. Endocrinology 147:1007-1013.
Ramaswamy S, Guerriero KA, Gibbs RB and Plant TM (2008). Structural interactions between kisspeptin and GnRH neurons in the mediobasal hypothalamus of the male rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta) as revealed by double immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy. Endocrinology 149: 4387-4395.
Ramaswamy S, Walker WH, Aliberti P, Sethi R, Marshall GR, Smith A, Nourashrafeddin S, Belgorosky A, Chandran UR, Hedger MP and Plant TM (2017). The testicular transcriptome associated with spermatogonia differentiation initiated by gonadotrophin stimulation in the juvenile rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta). Hum Reprod 32: 2088-2100.