Hallett Center for Diabetes and Endocrinology

David B. MacLean, MD

Adjunct associate professor, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Clinical staff member, Rhode Island Hospital

MD, University of Calgary Medical School, 1973
Board certified in internal medicine and endocrinology and metabolism

David MacLean, MD, has been a member of the endocrine division faculty since 1987. He graduated from Harvard University and received his MD from the University of Calgary Medical School in Canada. His postdoctoral training included an internship in internal medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal and, after two years in family medicine, he completed internal medicine residency at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He completed his endocrinology fellowship in 1981 at Tufts New England Medical Center. After six years on the faculty of Bowman Gray School of Medicine, MacLean joined the endocrine division at Rhode Island Hospital and Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

At Bowman Gray and Brown his research focused primarily on the regulation and role of neuropeptides in visceral sensory nerves, including vagal reflexes and appetite regulation. MacLean also co-founded the osteoporosis research and bone densitometry unit at Rhode Island Hospital and carried out clinical research on the effects of growth hormone in the elderly. Beginning in 1991, MacLean worked at Pfizer Central Research in Groton, CT first on sabbatical, testing the effects of a substance P antagonist in humans and then full-time one year later.

At present, he is director of metabolic diseases, worldwide clinical development, and has conducted clinical trials in appetite regulation, neuroendocrine reflexes and pain, osteoporosis and frailty. After joining Pfizer, MacLean assumed his current status at Brown as adjunct associate professor. He has continued his involvement as an active member of the endocrine division, where he maintains a clinical practice in endocrinology, serves as a preceptor in the clinical endocrinology fellowship, and in collaboration with Pfizer participates in laboratory-based research, focusing currently on brain regulation of appetite.

Representative Publications

MacLean DB. Abrogation of peripheral cholecystokinin-satiety in the capsaicin treated rat. Regul Pept 1985; 11:321-333.
MacLean DB. Adrenocorticotropin-adrenal regulation of transported substance P in the vagus nerve of the rat. Endocrinology 1987; 121:1540-1547.
Dionne RA, Max MB, Parada S, Gordon, SM, MacLean DB. Evaluation of a Neurokinin-1 Antagonist, CP-99,994, in Comparison to Ibuprofen and Placebo in the Oral Surgery Model: OIII-B-1. Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics 1996. 59:216.
Hennessey JV. Chromiak JA. DellaVentura S. Reinert SE. Puhl J. Kiel DP. Rosen CJ. Vandenburgh H.MacLean DB. Growth hormone administration and exercise effects on muscle fiber type and diameter in moderately frail older people. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 2001. 49:852-858.
LuGuang Luo and MacLean DB. Effects of Thyroid Hormone on Food Intake by Hypothalamic Na/K ATPase Activity and ATP Content: Evidence for Direct Energy Sensing in the Hypothalamus (a Hypothalamic Ergostat). Abstract, 84th Annual Mtg Endocrine Society, San Francisco, CA, 2002.

Meet the team

Back | More about the Hallett Center