John S. Torday is Professor of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Evolutionary Medicine, at the University of California- Los Angeles, USA. He has published over 200 papers on lung biology, and over the course of the last 20 years, more than 100 peer-reviewed articles regarding the evolution of physiology based on cellular-molecular principles of development and phylogeny, by exploiting cell-cell signalling as the underlying mechanism. In addition, he has authored or co-authored six books on this topic that are unique to the literature on biology, medicine, cell biology, developmental biology and pathophysiology. He has taken a unique approach to the question of how and why evolution has occurred based on extensive knowledge of lipid physical chemistry, having studied its role in lung evolution under the influence of hormonal effects on structure and function developmentally, physiologically and pathologically.