Affiliation(s):

• Wayne State University Department of Internal Medicine
• Wayne State University Department of Physiology

I have two primary areas of research:

1) vasopressin secretion and central action of vasopressin in neurocardiovascular disease and 2) neurocardiovascular and renal function in models of hypertension and metabolic disorders.

Vasopressin secretion into the periphery is important for vascular and water balance. My recent focus, however, has been on somatodendritic release of vasopressin within the brain itself. Vasopressin actions within key brain loci strongly influences behavior as well as the autonomic nervous system, including blood pressure, heart rate, and sympathetic nerve activity.

The work on vasopressin to evaluate cardiovascular, renal and sympathetic nerve function has led to broader focus on the role of baroreflex and sympathetic control during hypertension (renal vascular, salt sensitive, and other models) as well as dietary influences on pre-diabetes and blood pressure that are prevalent in current society.

In my undergraduate years, I loved organic chemistry and enjoyed extracting and crystalizing compounds. My first paper was on rearrangement of N,N disubstituted alpha-beta epoxy amides in the presence of BF3 etherate! My initial intention was to be an x-ray crystallographer and find new natural products that could be considered for drugs. My uncle, a biochemist, persuaded me to go into medicine instead. “You can always do research, too.” I still love crystals and small molecules, so I decided to study water and one of the smallest hormones, vasopressin, as a medical student. I am still studying vasopressin but moved from the kidney to the brain during my fellowship with Dr. Robert Schrier, since all the other areas of vasopressin research were “taken” by other fellows in the lab. So, despite being a nephrologist, I ended up in the brain and continue to work on vasopressin secretion into the periphery as well as within the brain to regulate autonomic function in health and disease, including depression. The work also led me from test tube, to organ culture, and back into the whole organism.

As a consequence of studying vasopressin in vivo, the role of the baroreflex and sympathetic nerve activity became evident. This led to studies in neuroexcitation in models of hypertension, heart failure, diabetes, including dietary influences such as fructose and high salt intake. It continues to be a interesting trajectory…

The need for potable water in many parts of the world and the ability of the human body to adapt to scarcity and abundance of such a small molecule will be increasingly important. This will require the integrated collaboration of many investigators and workers in a broad array of fields in addition to classic physiology: meteorology, engineering, oceanography, and ecology. I would like to be part of those integrated efforts.

I have been fortunate to have had wonderful mentors throughout my education from high school through college, medical school, residency, and fellowship. Two stand out: Dr. William Stone at Vanderbilt and Dr. Robert W. Schrier at U. Colorado. Dr. Stone was consummately dedicated to excellence in patient care. He was keenly observant and described many new entities in kidney patients. Even more, although he was very exacting and demanding of his learners, his door was truly always open. His files of common and obscure papers were accessible to anyone — as long as they were returned after being read! Even as a faculty member, I needed information on arsenic in kidney disease in a patient. PubMed, Google, etc. were useless but Dr. Stone had the papers I needed.