Marcello Costa (1940–2024)

Simon J. H. Brookes; David A. Wattchow; Nick J. Spencer; Phil G. Dinning

doi:10.1071/HR25008

EDITORIAL (Open Access)

Previous Contents Vol 36(2)

Marcello Costa (1940–2024)

Simon J. H. Brookes

^A ^* , David A. Wattchow ^A , Nick J. Spencer ^A and Phil G. Dinning ^A

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A College of Medicine & Public Health, Flinders Health & Medical Research Institute, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA 5042, Australia.

^* Correspondence to: simon.brookes@flinders.edu.au

Historical Records of Australian Science 36, HR25008 https://doi.org/10.1071/HR25008

Published online: 16 September 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the Australian Academy of Science. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Marcello Costa (1940–2024) was a leading researcher in neuroscience. He was a lecturer in the School of Medicine at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia for forty-seven years; during this time his research concentrated on the autonomic nervous system, particularly the gastrointestinal tract and the control of motility. He published many multi-disciplinary studies based on a wide range of highly innovative methods. He played a key role in defining the roles of neuropeptides, in devising methods to characterise different classes of nerve cells, and in the quantitative analysis of intestinal motility. He was also a humanist and a passionate advocate for public education in science.

Keywords: autonomic nervous system, enteric nervous system, gastrointestinal motility, immunohistochemistry, intestinal physiology, neuropeptides, neuroscience, smooth muscle.

References

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