Introduction

This special issue contains 16 solicited papers based on presentations at the 14th International Winter Eicosanoid Conference held in Baltimore, Maryland, March 11–14, 2012. We dedicate this issue to Dr. Jorge Capdevila, who was honored in a symposium at that meeting.
The topics covered in this issue highlight the impact of Dr. Capdevila's work on the field, leading to productive collaborations, the discovery of new lipid mediators, and the development of new small molecules for therapeutics. Many of these studies can trace their roots back to a series of experiments conducted in early 1979 by Dr. Capdevila that led to what was, at the time, anomalous data. With pugnacious determination in the face of much skepticism, he pursued an answer to a conundrum and now, almost 35 years later, we recognize this work as the first explorations of the cytochrome P450 branch of the arachidonate cascade.
Dr. Capdevila's lifetime research has been instrumental in identifying the CYP450 metabolites of arachidonic acid as important physiological regulators of sodium transport, vasodilation, inflammation, metabolism, and angiogenesis. In this issue, Imig reviews the role of the epoxyeicosatrienoic acids and 20-hydroxyeicosatetraeonic acid in regulating renal microvascular function. Seubert reports that epoxyeicosatrienoic acids improve recovery of cardiac function following ischemia in aged mice. In a related paper, Strauss and colleagues report improved functional recovery from traumatic brain injury in mice lacking soluble epoxide hydrolase, even though EET concentrations were similar in wild type and knockout animals when measured over a month after the injury. Together, these papers highlight the types of scientific observations that have spurred the development of pharmacological inhibitors of soluble epoxide, a topic covered by Podolin.