Dr Dick de Zeeuw
Department of Clinical Pharmacology, University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands

Dr Dick de Zeeuw earned his MD from the University of Groningen in 1975. His finished his PhD thesis in 1980 on the topic of renal hypertension in the Renal Department of the Groningen University. Trained in clinical and experimental renal research at the Renal Department in Groningen, and trained in Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Dallas (1984-1985). He was Board Certified in 1996 at the University of Groningen.

Dr de Zeeuw is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Clinical Pharmacology with a joint appointment in the Department of Nephrology.

He serves (served) on the editorial board of several international journals, including Kidney International, Journal of Hypertension, JRAAS, Current Opinion in Nephrology and Hypertension, Journal of Geriatric Urology and Nephrology, NEPHRON, Clinical Nephrology, NDT Plus.

He is Co-director Groningen Institute for Kidney Disease, member of ISN Council, and member of the ISN Research Committee GO.

His research interests include: optimize the current and find new therapy approaches to reduce the progressive loss of cardiovascular and renal function, both in diabetic and non-diabetic renal disease. The role of albuminuria/proteinuria and microalbuminuria as biomarker for cardiac and renal disease progression has his particular interest, not only trying to establish the independent “causal” role of albumin leakage in renal and cardiovascular disease progression, but also to establish intervention strategies that lower albuminuria/proteinuria with the supposed organ protective results. In his “albuminuria” quest he initiated large cohort studies such as PREVEND (general population) and GIANTT (type 2 diabetes), and is involved in the leadership of several clinical trials on preventing diabetic cardiovascular and renal progression such as RENAAL (AII receptor antagonist), PLANET (statin), TREAT (EPO), VITAL (vitD), SUN (sulodexide), ALTITUDE (renin-inhibition), CANVAS (SGLT2-inhibition), RADAR (atrasentan), BEACON (bardoxolone).

Unraveling the reasons for individual therapy resistance and creating a response score to evaluate the total effect of drugs are the topics that he judges to be the important focus for the next decades.

He has authored more than 440 international scientific publications and more than 60 book chapters, and received the Lennart Hansson Memorial Lecture Award from the European Society of Hypertension, the International Distinguished Medal from the American National Kidney Foundation, and a special lecture award from the Japanese Society of Nephrology.

Dr Murray Esler
Associate Director, Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne
Dressor of Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne
Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science

Murray Esler is a cardiologist and medical scientist, based at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute and the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne. His research interests are:

• The human sympathetic nervous system
• Stress, and its effects on the heart and blood pressure
• Causes and treatment of high blood pressure and heart failure
• Neurotransmitters of the human brain

Dr Esler’s principal research contribution has been the development of isotope dilution methodology to study the human sympathetic nervous system in internal organs not assessible to microneurography (“regional noradrenaline spillover” technique), and the application of this tool in the investigation of the sympathetic neural physiology of circulatory control, aging, exercise and mental stress responses, and the neural pathophysiology of cardiac failure and essential hypertension. His demonstration of chronic activation of the cardiac sympathetic outflow in heart failure provided the theoretical backdrop for the evaluation of beta-adrenergic blockers. More recently, his demonstration of activation of the renal sympathetic outflow in essential hypertension was the stimulus for the development of a new treatment for difficult to control patients, radio-frequency ablation of the renal sympathetic nerves with a purpose-designed renal artery catheter. He was chief investigator of a randomized trial successfully evaluating this new treatment.   

Dr Kelly Frazer
University of San Diego, Division of Genome Information Sciences, Moores UCSD Cancer Center, USA

Dr Frazer is internationally recognized for her broad expertise in the genomics field. She played a seminal role in the comparative DNA analyses field as one of the first individuals to perform a cross-species DNA analysis between humans and mice, resulting in the discovery that a significant fraction of non-coding sequences in the human genome are under evolutionary constraint.  Dr Frazer played a major role in Phase II of the International HapMap Project, in which more than 3 million SNPs were genotyped in 270 individuals of diverse ancestry.  She was the Principle Investigator of a large publicly funded mouse genome-wide SNP discovery and genotyping project which resulted in characterization of the segmental structure of variation in 15 inbred mouse strains. Dr Frazer has recently joined the University of California, San Diego as a Professor of Pediatrics and to serve as the founding chief of the new Division of Genome Information Sciences in the Department. The main function of the new division is to focus on predisposition for diseases starting in childhood but spanning the whole age spectrum, using genomic information. Such diseases include cancer, coronary artery disease, Type 2 Diabetes and obesity.

Dr Toshiro Fujita
Professor and Chairman, Department of Nephrology & Endocrnology, University of Tokyo, Japan

Dr Toshiro Fujita has been Professor of the Department of Nephrology & Endocrinology at the University of Tokyo since 1995. His contribution to the study of hypertension and kidney diseases has been widely recognized. In 2009, Professor Fujita was awarded Arthur Corcoran Lecture Award, Council for High Blood Pressure Research, AHA. Professor Fujita worked as a research and clinical fellow at NHLBI of NIH in Maryland, USA, from 1976 to 1978. In 1980, Fujita and Bartter at NIH demonstrated the pathophysiology of salt-sensitive hypertension (Am J Med 1980). Since then, he has been continuing research on renal and metabolic aspects of hypertension. Recently, Dr Fujita's group has reported the involvement of mineralocorticoid receptor activation in salt-sensitive hypertension and metabolic syndrome. Recently, they found alternative pathway of MR activation: modification of MR function by Rac1 GTPase (Nat Med 2008). Most recently, his group clarified the involvement of aberrant renal βadrenergic receptor-WNK4 pathway in salt-induced hypertension (Nat Med 2011). A renowned expert in his fields, Professor Fujita has been actively contributing to Professional associations and scientific publications. Over the past 30 years, Professor Fujita has published over 500 scientific articles. He was a Vice-President, International Society of Hypertension (2008-2010).

Dr Rick Lifton
Chairman of the Department of Genetics
Sterling Professor of Genetics and Internal Medicine
Director of the Yale Center for Human Genetics and Genomics
Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Yale University School of Medicine

Richard Lifton is Chairman of the Department of Genetics, Sterling Professor of Genetics and Internal Medicine, Director of the Yale Center for Human Genetics and Genomics, and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Yale University School of Medicine. He received his BA from Dartmouth, MD and PhD degrees from Stanford, and completed clinical training in Medicine at Harvard prior to moving to Yale in 1993.

Dr Lifton's laboratory has used human genetics and genomics to identify causes of heart, kidney, and bone disease. By investigating thousands of families from around the world, his group has identified more than 25 human disease genes. These include key genes and pathways that are critical to the risk of hypertension, stroke, heart attack, and osteoporosis. These studies have provided new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to these diseases, which affect more than 1 billion people world-wide.

Dr Lifton also chairs the Scientific Advisory Board of Merck and the NIH Advisory Committee for Large Scale Genomic Sequencing.  He serves on the Governing Councils of the Institute of Medicine and the Association of American Physicians, and on the Scientific Advisory Boards of The Simons Foundation Autism Project, The Gallo Foundation of the University of California, San Francisco, Broad Institute of Harvard, MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital.

His honors include election to the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.  He has received the highest scientific awards of the American Heart Association, the Council for High Blood Pressure Research, the American Society of Hypertension, the American Society of Neprhology, the International Society of Hypertension and the International Society of Nephrology.  He received the 2008 Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences. 

Dr Eric Olsen
Professor and Chair
Department of Molecular Biology
Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair
Annie and Willie Nelson Professor
Pogue Distinguished Chair in Research on Cardiac Birth Defects
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Eric Olson has dedicated his career to deciphering the mechanisms that control muscle gene regulation and development.  His most recent work has focused on the genetic pathways responsible for congenital and acquired cardiovascular disease.

Dr Olson grew up in North Carolina where he attended Wake Forest University and received a B.A. in Chemistry and Biology in 1977, a Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1981 and an honorary doctorate in 2003.  After postdoctoral training with Luis Glaser at Washington University School of Medicine, he joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in 1984 and became Professor and Chairman in 1991.  In 1995, he founded the Department of Molecular Biology at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. 

Dr Olson's honors include the Basic Research Prize, the Founding Distinguished Scientist Award, and the Research Achievement Award from the American Heart Association, the Pasarow Medical Research Award in Cardiovascular Disease, the Gill Heart Institute Award, the Lucian Award for Research in Cardiovascular Disease, the Outstanding Investigator Award from the International Society for Heart Research, and the Pollin Prize for Lifetime Contributions to Pediatric Research.   In 2009, the Institut de France and French Academy of Science awarded Dr Olson the Fondation Lefoulon-Delalande Grand Prize, considered the largest international award in cardiovascular medicine.  He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and its Institute of Medicine.

In his spare time, Eric Olson plays guitar and harmonica with The Transactivators, a rock band inspired by the Texas icon, Willie Nelson, who created the Professorship that Olson holds

Dr Peter Rothwell
Professor of Clinical Neurology & Director of the Stroke Prevention Research Unit, University of Oxford

Professor Rothwell is a neurologist and clinical epidemiologist with an interest in stroke. He was awarded an MRC Senior Clinical Fellowship 2000 and set up the Stroke Prevention Research Unit in Oxford, which now employs about 30 researchers and support staff. He was made Professor of Clinical Neurology at the University of Oxford in 2004 and a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2008. He has published over 250 scientific papers and several books. His research interests include the causes and prevention of stroke, particularly after a TIA or minor stroke, the link between hypertension and stroke, and the non-vascular effects of aspirin. He has also published widely on the more general theme of how best to apply the results of clinical trials and other forms of research to clinical decisions about individual patients in routine practice.

Dr Tien Wong
Director, Singapore Eye Research Institute, Singapore National Eye Centre

Professor Tien Y Wong is Director of the Singapore Eye Research Institute and Head of the Department of Ophthalmology at National University of Singapore. He is concurrently Professor at the Centre for Eye Research Australia, the University of Melbourne.

Dr Wong completed medical school from the National University of Singapore, clinical ophthalmology training in Singapore, and obtained his PhD from the Johns Hopkins University, USAS. Dr Wong leads a broad-based research program focused on retinal vascular diseases, including hypertensive and diabetic retinopathy, and the use of retinal imaging to predict cardiovascular risk. He has published >500 papers, including papers in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, and JAMA.

For his research, Dr Wong has been recognized internationally with numerous awards, including the Ten Outstanding Young Person of the World for “academic leadership in people younger than 40 years of age” (1999), the Sandra Doherty Award from the American Heart Association (2004), the Woodward Medal from the University of Melbourne (2005), the Alcon Research Institute Award (2006), the Novartis Prize in Diabetes (2006), the Commonwealth Health Minister’s Award for Excellence in Health and Medical Research (2006), the Australian Society of Medical Research Medical Research of the Year Award (2006), the Singapore Translational Researcher Award (2008), the Outstanding Researcher Award from the National University of Singapore (2009), the Singapore National Clinician Scientist Award (2010) and the Singapore President’s Science Award (2010).

Dr Stephen Harrap
Department of Physiology, University of Melbourne, Australia 

Dr Sadayoshi Ito
Vice Dean and Professor of Medicine, Tohoku University School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan

Dr Sadayoshi Ito is Vice Dean and Professor of Medicine at Tohoku University School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan. He is also Head of Division of Nephrology, Endocrinology and Vascular Medicine and Director of Clinical Trial Center at Tohoku University Hospital. Dr Ito received his MD from Tohoku University School of Medicine in 1979. Following clinical training, he had undergone his fellowship at Henry Ford Hospital in USA from 1982 to 1984. Although he came back in Japan for a time, he returned to Henry Ford Hospital USA as a Senior Staff Investigator in 1987. He came back to Tohoku University as Associate Professor in 1995 and then was promoted to Professor of Medicine in 1997. His research interests center on the mechanism of renin release and glomerular hemodynamics. Dr Ito developed unique technologies for isolation and perfusion of a single glomerular afferent or efferent arteriole, or for simultaneous perfusion of both a single afferent arteriole and the attached macula densa. His elegant research has been appreciated highly and received many awards, including Young Investigator Award (First Prize) of Inter American Society of Hypertension, Young Scholar Award of the American Society of Hypertension and Established Investigator Award of American Heart Association. He served as a Chief Editor of Nephron from 1999 to 2002, and fills or has filled an important role in journals like Journal of American Society of Nephrology, Hypertension Research and Clinical and Experimental Nephrology.

Dr Garry Jennings
ASPH Presidential Lecturer
Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute, OC Chair & Program Chair

Professor Garry Jennings is Director of Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute. He is Past President of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes, the High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia and Head, WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Cardiovascular Health.
A cardiologist, he was previously Director of Cardiology at The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne and Chair of the Division of Medicine.

His research interests have included exercise in cardiovascular disease and metabolism, the sympathetic pathophysiology of hypertension and heart failure, cardiac structure and function.  He has published books on heart disease for the general public and over 400 research publications. 

Boards include Baker IDI startup companies such as Nucleus Network, Kardia as well as National Heart Foundation, Research Australia, Osprey Medical Inc. 

Post Nominals: AM, MB.BS, MD, FRCP, FRACP, FAHA, FCSANZ, MAICD

Dr Bo Carlberg
Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University Hospital, Sweden

Dr Carlberg is a Senior Lecturer and Consultant in Internal Medicine with interest in Blood Pressure, Stroke and the connection between them. He has published papers about different clinical aspects of stroke, in particular blood pressure reactions during acute stroke. He is also interested in the process of how to apply results from clinical studies in clinical practice. He is working for the Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment and has published systematic reviews in the field of hypertension. He is a member of the board of the Swedish Medical Association and the Scientific Council of the International Society of Hypertension.

Dr Tom Coffman
Duke University and Durham VA Medical Centers, Department of Medicine, Division of Nephrology, USA

Dr Thomas Coffman is James R. Clapp Professor of Medicine, Chief of the Division of Nephrology, Senior Vice-Chair in the Department of Medicine, and Director of the Duke Cardiovascular Research Center at Duke University Medical Center. He also serves as Director of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders Program at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore. Dr Coffman graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and obtained his M.D. from the Ohio State University School of Medicine. He undertook his internal medicine and nephrology training at Duke. A national leader in the field of nephrology, Dr Coffman is Past-President of the American Society of Nephrology. He is also a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians, and served on the Nephrology Subspecialty Board of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM). He serves on a number of editorial boards including Physiological Reviews and Cell Metabolism. He is a Fellow of the Councils for High Blood Pressure Research and the Kidney in Cardiovascular Disease of the American Heart Association, and serves on the Leadership Committee for the AHA Council for High Blood Pressure Research. Dr Coffman's research interests include the renin-angiotensin and prostanoid systems and their role in regulating blood pressure, kidney function, and renal inflammation. He is also a member of the NIH-funded Animal Models of Diabetes Complications Consortium. His laboratory work is supported by grants from the NIH, the Department of Veterans' Affairs, and the Edna and Fred L. Mandel Center for Hypertension and Atherosclerosis Research.

Dr Christian Delles
Institute for Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, University of Glasgow, UK

Christian Delles is a Reader and Consultant Physician at the Institute for Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, University of Glasgow. He is interested in the initiation and progression of cardiovascular diseases and studies subclinical organ damage. His research is in the areas of oxidative stress and endothelial function as pathogenetic factors of hypertension and other cardiovascular disorders. Currently he focuses on studies into biomarkers of cardiovascular and renal disease with a particular interest in proteomic approaches.

He is a member of national and international hypertension societies including the Deutsche Hochdruckliga, BHS, ESH, ISH and the Council for High Blood Pressure Research. He is Associate Editor of Clinical Science. He received the Harry Goldblatt Young Investigator Award from the Council for High Blood Pressure Research in 2009. His biomarker research is supported by grants from the European Commission.

Dr Peter Doherty
Laureate Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne

Professor Peter Doherty shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or Medicine in 1996 with Swiss colleague Rolf Zinkernagel, for their discovery of how the immune system recognises virusinfected cells. He was Australian of the Year in 1997, and has since been commuting between St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne. His research is mainly in the
area of defence against viruses. He regularly devotes time to delivering public lectures, writing articles for newspapers and magazines and participating in radio discussions.

Peter Doherty graduated from the University of Queensland in Veterinary Science and became a veterinary officer. Moving to Scotland, he received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh Medical School. He is the first person with a veterinary qualification to win a Nobel Prize.

Peter is also the author of several books, including “A Light History of Hot Air” and “The Beginners Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize”.

Dr Marianne Geleijnse
Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Division of Human Nutrition, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

Johanna M. (Marianne) Geleijnse, PhD, FAHA, completed her MSc degree in Epidemiology at the Netherlands Institute of Health Sciences, Rotterdam, in 1994. She then went on to earn her PhD from Erasmus University Medical School in Rotterdam in 1996, with a dissertation "Sodium, potassium and blood pressure: studies in the young and the old". Her research focuses on the role of diet and lifestyle in the prevention of hypertension and cardiovascular diseases. She is currently an Associate Professor in Epidemiology at the Division of Human Nutrition at Wageningen University and has been selected to participate in the Tenure Track, a career path for talented scientists. Since 2006 she has been a Senior Scientist at the Top Institute of Food and Nutrition (TIFN) in Wageningen, where she is involved in multidisciplinary research projects on dietary components in relation to blood pressure and vascular function. At the Division of Human Nutrition she is involved in a number of epidemiological projects on dietary fatty acids, fruits and vegetables, and dairy consumption in relation to hypertension and cardiovascular diseases. From 2002 – 2010 she was the coordinator of the Alpha Omega Trial, a multicenter study of omega-3 fatty acids and cardiovascular diseases (www.alphaomegatrial.com). She is one of the "3rd Generation Investigators" of the Seven Countries Study. She is currently the president of the Netherlands Academy of Nutritional Sciences (NAV, www.voedingsacademie.nl), and member of the Working Group on Cardiovascular Health & Antioxidants of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). From 2007 – 2010 she was a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Netherlands Heart Foundation. Since 2005 she has been involved in the World Action on Salt and Health (WASH), a global network of scientists who aim to reduce salt intake at the population level. She is also an international fellow of the American Heart Association and serves on the Council on Epidemiology and Prevention.

Dr Paul Glasziou
Bond University, Centre for Research in Evidence-Based Practice (CREBP), Faculty of Health Sciences, Australia

Professor Paul Glasziou MB BS, PhD, FAFPHM, FRACGP is currently the Director of the Centre for Research in Evidence-Based Health Care at Bond University, and Professor in the department of Primary Care at the University of Oxford, and also continues work as a part-time General Practitioner. He holds an NHMRC Australia Fellowship to undertake research on the causes and cures for the evidence practice gap.

His research and teaching interests are in improving medical decision making, including clinical trials, systematic reviews and evidence-based medicine. Professor Glasziou has authored over 180 peer-reviewed journal articles – half of these since 2004. These research articles have appeared in key general medicine journals such as the BMJ (26), Lancet (8), JAMA (4), NEJM (3), Annals of Internal Medicine (3), and the MJA (8), as well as a variety of specialist and methodological journals. His research papers have a total of over 12,000 citations. His h-index is currently 45. He is the author of seven books related to evidence based practice: Evidence-Based Medicine: How to Practice and Teach EBM, Systematic Reviews in Health Care, Decision Making in Health Care and Medicine: integrating evidence and values, An Evidence-Based Medicine Workbook, Clinical Thinking: Evidence, Communication and Decision-making, Evidence-Based Medical Monitoring: Principles and Practice, and Testing Treatments (2nd edition), most of which have been translated into multiple languages.

Dr Joey Granger
Billy S. Guyton Distinguished Professor, Dressor of Physiology and Medicine, Director of the Center for Excellence in Cardiovascular-Renal Research, and Dean of the School of Graduate Studies in the Health Sciences at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, USA

Dr Granger is currently an Associate Editor for Hypertension and serves as Editor of the eBook series entitled Integrative Systems Physiology.  He has also served as the Editor of the Council for High Blood Pressure Newsletter and an Associate Editor for News in Physiological Sciences and American Journal of Physiology. He has served as a member of Editorial Boards of American Journal of Hypertension, American Journal of Physiology -Renal, American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory and Integrative Physiology, Journal of CardioMetabolic Syndrome and the Journal of the American Society of Hypertension.  He has published over 200 peer reviewed manuscripts. He currently serves as President of the American Physiological Society (APS). He also serves on the Leadership committees of the Council for High Blood Pressure Research of the American Heart Association (AHA) and Inter-American Society of Hypertension.  He has received several awards including the 2011 AHA Distinguished Achievement Award, the APS 2008 E.H. Starling Distinguished Lecture Award,  APS 2008 Bodil M. Schmidt-Nielsen Distinguished Mentor and Scientist Award, Dahl Memorial Lecture of the AHA, the Bowditch Lecture of the APS, and the Established Investigator Award of the AHA.  Granger's research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1984. Dr Granger's research has focused on the role of the kidneys in the pathogenesis of hypertension.  His current research focuses on the role of endothelial and neurohormonal factors in mediating hypertension in animal models of preeclampsia.  His laboratory is also investigating the role of the renal endothelin system in salt-sensitive hypertension.

Dr John Hall
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Mississippi Medical Center, USA

John E. Hall is the Arthur Guyton Professor and Chair of Physiology & Biophysics, and Associate Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC). Hall received a doctorate in physiology at Michigan State University before joining the faculty at UMMC where he has served as chair of Physiology & Biophysics for the past 23 years.

Hall's major research interests include cardiovascular and renal physiology, hypertension, obesity and diabetes. His research has been funded by NIH since 1975 and he has authored over 500 publications and 18 books, including the Textbook of Medical Physiology. He previously served as Editor-in-Chief of Hypertension and The American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. Hall has served on the executive committees of several international societies and as president of the American Physiological Society (APS), the Inter-American Society of Hypertension and Chair of the Council for High Blood Pressure Research of the Am. Heart Association (AHA). His awards include the Novartis Award for Hypertension Research of the AHA, Distinguished Achievement Award of the AHA, Richard Bright Award of the American Society of Hypertension, Harry Goldblatt Award of AHA, Lewis Dahl Award of AHA, Lifetime Achievement Award of the Inter-American Society of Hypertension, Merck, Sharp and Dohme Distinguished Research Award from the International Society of Hypertension, and Ernest Starling Award of the APS.

Dr Wendy Hoy
Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Chronic Disease, University of Queensland, Australia

Dr Wendy Hoy is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Chronic Disease at the University of Queensland.  Dr Hoy is world renown for her work on the risk for kidney disease, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease in disadvantaged or high risk populations.  She has led numerous studies to better understand why certain populations are at increased risk for kidney disease, such as the Tiwi of Australia, as well as studies of populations in South Africa, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, and other countries.  Her research encompasses epidemiological studies of kidney disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. A major focus is the contribution of the intrauterine environment and early life events, including infections, to disease susceptibility. Another focus of collaborative studies with Monash University is identification of structural, ultrastructural and molecular markers of kidney and cardiovascular disease and disease susceptibility. Her work has stimulated studies of primary and secondary prevention, genetics, outcomes research and cost-effectiveness evaluations.  She has been funded generously by many agencies, including Kidney Health Australia, the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, and the Colonial Foundation of Australia, Servier and Amgen. Awards include the Brenner endowed lectureship in 2006 from the American Society of Nephrology, the International Distinguished Medal from the National Kidney Foundation in the USA in 2007 and Australia's leading biomedical research award, the Australia Fellowship, from the National Health and Medical Research Council in 2008. She has more than 180 manuscripts in the scientific literature and has made more than 500 presentations at national and international meetings. Dr Hoy was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2010, in recognition of her contributions to knowledge of chronic disease on high risk populations, and to health services reform, including in Australia's Indigenous population.  

Dr Yutaka Imai
Department of Planning for Drug Development and Clinical Evaluation, Tohoku University Graduate School, Sendai, Japan

Professor Yutaka Imai is Emeritus Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Medicine, and is Chairman and Professor of Planning for Drug Development and Clinical Evaluation, Tohoku University Graduate School and was Director of the Center of Excellence, Tohoku University. He received his M.D.(1971) and Ph.D.(1998) from Tohoku University. He was undertook post-doctoral training at Department of Medicine, Melbourne University (Chaired by Professor Colin Johnston). In 2009, Professor Imai was awarded the Prevention Prize from the Japan Heart Foundation and in 2010, the Japanese Society of Hypertension award, for his long-time contribution to cardiovascular disease prevention, specifically the 25 year Ohasama Study, cardiovascular disease prevention strategy based on home and ambulatory blood pressure, as well as HOMED-BP study, a large scale intervention trial (RCT) for hypertension over a span of 10 years on the basis of home blood pressure measurements and information technology. Professor Imai has held important role in Japanese Society of Hypertension as a Councilor of that Society and held a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Hypertension, Clinical Experimental Hypertension, Hypertension Research, and Blood Pressure Monitoring. He has published more than 500 peer reviewed English language papers.

Dr Rod Jackson
Professor, Section of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, School of Population Health, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland

Rod Jackson is a Professor of epidemiology in the Section of Epidemiology & Biostatistics at the School of Population Health, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland. He is medically trained, has a PhD in Epidemiology and is a member of the New Zealand College of Public Health Medicine.

His main research interest for the last 30 years has been the epidemiology of cardiovascular diseases. He is one of the architects of New Zealand risk-based clinical guidelines for managing CVD risk. His current research is based around PREDICT - a web-based decision support system being used to help primary and secondary care practitioners across New Zealand systematically manage CVD and diabetes risk at the 'moment of care' for their practice populations. PREDICT simultaneously generates a CVD research cohort that currently includes over 200,000 people and is growing at 1-2,000 per month.

Dr Elisabeth Lambert
Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne, Australia

Dr Elisabeth Lambert joined the Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute, Human Neurotransmitters Laboratory, Melbourne Australia in 1999. She received her Ph.D. in 1996 from the University of Paris Sud. Dr Lambert's research interest focuses on exploring the pathophysiological mechanisms leading to abnormal sympathetic nervous function as well as its impact on the cardiovascular system and subsequent target-organ damage in conditions associated with elevated cardiovascular risk. Dr Lambert is an expert in clinical microneurography. Her work has contributed to the understanding of abnormalities of sympathetic function and mechanism of cardiac risk in hypertension, anxiety disorders and orthostatic intolerance. Her most recent work focuses on investigating the impact of sympathetic dysfunction in obesity and metabolic disorders and examining the effects of various treatments (diet, exercise, bariatric surgery, sympatholytic & insulin sensitiser agents) on sympathetic function end organ damage in obese patients.

Dr Richard Lee
Harvard Medical School, Harvard Stem Cell Institute, USA

Richard T. Lee is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and lecturer in Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr Lee is a 1979 graduate of Harvard College in Biochemical Sciences and received his M.D. from Cornell University Medical College in 1983. Dr Lee completed his residency in 1986 and cardiology fellowship in 1989, both at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He performed post-doctoral training at MIT in Bioengineering.

Dr Lee is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in cardiovascular disease and is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology. He is Leader of the Cardiovascular Program of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the journals Circulation Research, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and Circulation.

Dr Lee has published over 180 peer-reviewed articles based on his research, which combines approaches in biotechnology and molecular biology to discover new avenues to manage and treat heart disease and diabetes. In addition, Dr Lee is an active clinician; he regularly treats patients as a cardiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, teaches physical diagnosis to Harvard Medical students, and volunteers his time for medical care to the homeless at a Boston shelter.

Dr Gerard London
INSERM U970, Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou, Paris, France

DrGérard M. London graduate from medical school of Charles University in Prague in July 1966. He specialized in Nephrology (1967-1971) at Paris Medical School and became the chief of the department of Nephrology-Hemodialysis of the Manhes Hospital from 1970-2009. From 1991 to 1998 he was member of the Council of French Society of Nephrology and from 1994 to 1999 of the Council of French Society of Hypertension. Member of the Council of European Renal Association (ERA-EDTA) from 2002 to 2006, he is presently member of the Scientific Council of International Society of Hypertension, and President of ERA-EDTA (European Renal Association – European Dialysis and Transplant Association from for 2008-2011.

He published in this field more than 350 publications in peer review journals and several chapters in the books.

Member of International-American-French Societies of Hypertension, and International-European-American and French Societies of Nephrology, Dr London was awarded the Gold Medal of Charles University in Prague, and Paul Milliez Award of European Soc. of Hypertension. Dr London is presently member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Nephrology, Journal of Hypertension, Nephrol. Dial. Transplant., Blood Purification, and serves as reviewer for Circulation, Hypertansion, Circulation Research, Kidney International, Journal of American Society of Nephrology, and several others.

Dr Julian Paton
School of Physiology & Pharmacology, Bristol Heart Institute, University of Bristol, Bristol, England

Julian Paton obtained his PhD from the University of London in Cardiovascular Neuroscience in 1987. Post-doctoral positions included working at E.I. DuPont de Nemours, Wilmington, Delaware, USA; University of Washington, Seattle, USA and University of Gőttingen, Germany. He was promoted to Professor in 2001. He has obtained a number of accolades including: The Sharpey Schafer Prize Lecture in Physiology (1999), Carl Ludwig Distinguished Lecturer from the American Physiological Society (2005), and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2006).  Between 2002-2007 he served on the British Heart Foundation projects grants committee. In 2008 he chaired the Steering Group of the Bristol Heart Institute at the University of Bristol. He has served on the editorial board of Experimental Physiology since 2001 and became its Deputy Editor in Chief in 2007. Recently, he joined the editorial board of the Journal of Physiology and was made Deputy Editor-in-Chief (Europe) (2011). He has been invited to give the Keynote Lecture at the Council for High Blood Pressure meeting in Orlando, Florida, USA (September 2011). Julian has a total of 234 publications consisting of 183 original peer reviewed papers and 51 book chapters and reviews. He has published one book and edited two others, and his work has been cited over 4,460 times.

Dr Vera Regitz-Zagrose
Institute of Gender in Medicine (GiM) , Center for Cardiovascular Research (CCR), Germany

Vera Regitz-Zagrosek received her medical degree from Saarland University and did her postdoc training at the Max-Planck-Institute for Experimental Cardiology (Dr W. Schaper) and at University of Madison, Wisconsin, Dept. of Biochemistry. She founded the Institute of Gender in Medicine (GiM) at the Charité in 2003, the working group on cardiovascular disease in women at the German cardiac society (DGK), the German and International Societies for Gender in Medicine (DGesGM and IGM) in 2007. She coordinates the Berlin site in the “German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK)” sponsored by German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). She is coordinator and project leader of the DFG (German Research Foundation) Research Training Group GK 754 and DFG Research Unit FOR 1054 on “Sex-specific mechanisms of myocardial hypertrophy”. She is Task Force Leader of the Guidelines “Cardiovascular Diseases in Pregnancy” of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and coordinates the pilot project “Gender Medicine” sponsored by German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and of the European ERASMUS project EUGIM (European Curriculum in Gender Medicine. She acts as reviewer for national and international funding organizations and journals. She published over 150 scientific papers (including Nature Reviews) and numerous book chapters and organizes annual congresses.

Dr Bert Sakmann
Head of the Research Group “Digital Neuroanatomy”, Scientific Director of the Max Planck Florida Institute, USA

Dr Bert Sakmann studied at the universities of Tübingen and Munich in Germany, graduating in 1967. Worked in various institutes within the Max Planck Society. Joint research with Bernard Katz in 1972 led to discoveries pertaining to the humoral transmitters in the nerve terminals and the mechanism for their storage, release and inactivation.

In 1991, together with Erwin Neher, co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for their research leading to discovery of the patch clamp technique, which enables precise measurements of electrical currents flowing in and out of individual ion channels of a cell’s membrane.

Work in Heidelberg focused on using patch pipettes to study CNS circuits to identify the sophisticated interplay of channels across the membranes of cells which regulate the flow of sodium, potassium and calcium ions in response to chemical signals acting on the postsynaptic membrane of cells during nerve stimulation, which led to the identification of mechanisms leading to experience-dependent changes in the synaptic connections between nerve cells in the brain.

In a giant CNS synapse, identification, by means of patch pipettes, of mechanisms that couple calcium inflow into the presynaptic membrane to the release of glutamate; description of a detailed model of buffered diffusion of calcium in the presynaptic terminal between active calcium channels and the vesicular calcium sensor.
Since 2008, Head of the Research Group “Cortical Column in Silico”, Max-Planck-Institute of Neurobiology, Munich. This group discovered the cell-type specific sensory activation patterns in different layers of a column in the vibrissal area of the rodent cortex and their anatomical correlates.

As of June 2009, inaugural scientific director of the Max Planck Florida Institute in Palm Beach County: involved in establishing a research Institute in the USA for the Max-Planck-Society; heads the Research Group “Digital Neuroanatomy”, which established the detailed cellular anatomy of local circuits in a cortical column using 3D reconstructions of dendrites and axons of physiologically characterized neurons and re-engineering them into a cortical column in silico. Co-editor of “Single Channel Recording”.

Dr Ernesto Schiffrin
McGill, Department of Medicine, Division of Experimental Medicine, Canada

Dr Ernesto Schiffrin is Physician-in-Chief of the Jewish General Hospital and holds a Canada Research Chair in Hypertension and Vascular Research. He is Professor and Vice-Chair (Research), Department of Medicine, McGill University.

Dr Schiffrin's research deals with mechanisms and treatment of high blood pressure, from molecules and cells to humans. He is author of more than 470 peer-reviewed publications, many book chapters and is editor of 2 published books, on molecular and clinical aspects of vascular disease and hypertension.

Dr Schiffrin has been President of the Canadian Hypertension Society (1991-92), Chair of the High Blood Pressure Research Council of the American Heart Association (2002-2004), President of the InterAmerican Society of Hypertension (2005-2007) and President of the Quebec Hypertension Society (2009-2011). Dr Schiffrin is Vice-President (2010-2012) and President-Elect (2011-2012) of the International Society of Hypertension. Dr Schiffrin is Associate Editor of Hypertension (AHA journal) since 2003.

Dr Schiffrin was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2006, and received the 2007 Irvine Page-Alva Bradley Lifetime Achievement Award of the High Blood Pressure Research Council of the American Heart Association and the 2010 Bjorn Folkow Award of the European Society of Hypertension. He was appointed Member of the Order of Canada (C.M.) in July 2010. He was awarded the Excellence in Hypertension Research Award of the American Heart Association, funded by Novartis, in September 2011.

Dr Roland Schmeider
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Department of Nephrology and Hypertension, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany

Dr Schmieder is currently Professor of Internal Medicine, Nephrology and Hypertension and Head of the Clinical Research Competence Center of Hypertension and Vascular Medicine (www.crc-erlangen.de), Department of Nephrology and Hypertension of the University Hospital Erlangen, Germany. Dr Schmieder has extensive experience in the execution of clinical observational and international multicenter studies. His research interests include hypertension, vascular medicine, nephrology and non-invasice cardiology, with the focus on hypertensive damage to the heart, kidneys, arteries and retinal circulation and its treatment. He directs the Institute of Preventive Medicine in Germany (www.ipm-aktuell.de) that transfers new evidence to health care providers (physicians, nurses) and patients.

Dr Karen Sliwa
Director, Hatter Institute for Cardiovascular Research, University of Cape Town and Director, Soweto Cardiovascular Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Professor Karen Sliwa has been extensively involved in creating worldwide awareness of Peripartum Cardiomyopathy, one of her main areas of clinical and pathophysiological research.

Recent progress in understanding underlying pathophysiology enabled by novel experimental approaches, together with a unique international effort to join forces between Western countries and developing countries, has led to great progress in awareness and management of the disease  In order to coordinate efforts even better, a Study Group, ‘Peripartum Cardiomyopathy’, of the Heart Failure Association of the European Cardiac Society, chaired by Dr Karen Sliwa and Dr B. Pieske, was formed in 2009. A Position Statement, highlighting the need for larger awareness worldwide was published in 2010. A large Registry on Peripartum Cardiomyopathy was approved by the European Cardiac Society and will commence 2012 in the ESC countries and affiliated regions.

Karen Sliwa has, together with her long-term collaborator, Dr Simon Stewart, Head Preventive Cardiology, Baker IDI, Melbourne, Australia, established a population study in Africa called the ‘Heart of Soweto Study’ to investigate the prevalence, presentation and management of cardiac disease in an urban African population. This study, on more than 8000 patients, highlighted the high prevalence of hypertension, obesity and cardiac disease in women of childbearing age. She has recently expanded her population studies to other African countries, including Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya and Sudan. She has designed a number of innovative research programs and leveraged funding for several major research projects, not only in South Africa and the rest of Africa, but also internationally.

Dr Chris Sobey
NHMRC Senior Research Fellow; Co-Head, Vascular Biology & Immunopharmacology Group, Department of Pharmacology, Monash University, Australia

Chris Sobey's research career has focused on studies of vascular function during health and disease states, with more than 100 publications.  He obtained his Ph.D. in 1991, and has been awarded NHMRC CJ Martin and RD Wright Fellowships to conduct postdoctoral studies including 2 years at the University of Iowa.  His work has examined numerous signalling mechanisms regulating the coronary and cerebral circulations, showing that vascular function is substantially altered in a range of diseases including hypertension, ischaemic stroke, subarachnoid haemorrhage, sepsis, coronary ischaemia-reperfusion and hypercholesterolaemia, and that gender differences often exist.  He is an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow, an Editor for British Journal of Pharmacology and Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology, and a member of 6 other Editorial Boards including Stroke, Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, and Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism. His current research is investigating the inflammatory mechanisms occurring in the brain after stroke in order to identify and develop novel approaches to treat clinical stroke patients.

Dr Christophe Tzourio
INSERM U970, Paris, France

Christophe Tzourio, MD, PhD, was initially trained as a vascular neurologist. While being assistant Professor in neurology he completed his PhD thesis on genetic modeling in Alzheimer's disease. In 1994 he became full time researcher with the INSERM (National Institute of Health and Medical Research) and in 2005 he became Director of a new research lab in neuroepidemiology. He is currently Professor of epidemiology and neurology at the university of Bordeaux. He is principal investigator of an ongoing population-based cohort study in more than 9000 elderly individuals, the 3C study, which has for main aim to assess the importance of vascular factors in dementia. He is also PI of an ongoing blood pressure lowering trial aiming at reducing the burden of silent cerebral infarcts and therefore lowering the risk of cognitive decline. He has published >170 original papers which have been cited >6000 times in international peer-reviewed journals. He is ranked in the top 1% of scientists (Highly Cited Scientist) by the ISI in both 'Clinical Medicine' and 'Neuroscience'. He has a special interest for the study of the consequences of blood pressure on the brain, particularly MRI brain lesions and dementia.

Dr Stephen Vatner
University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey, Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Medicine, Cardiovascular Research Institute, New Jersey Medical School, USA

Dr Vatner is currently University Professor and Director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey – New Jersey Medical School.  His research interest focuses on Integrative Cardiovascular Physiology, with major findings including the discovery of stunned myocardium and that inhibition of adenylyl cyclase type 5 enhances longevity and stress resistance.  He has trained more than 75 postdoctoral research fellows, who are now currently Professors or leaders at other universities. He served as editor-in-chief of the American Heart Association journal Circulation Research from 1991 to 1999. Dr Vatner has received numerous honors and awards, including the Scientific Councils Distinguished Achievement Award of the American Heart Association in 1998, the George E. Brown Lecturer in 1986, the 1995 Wiggers Award of the American Physiology Society, the 2005 Distinguished Scientist of the American Heart Association Award and the 2011 Robert M. Berne Distinguished Lectureship Award.

Dr Jiguang Wang
Neurology, Peking First University Hospital, Beijing, China

Jiguang Wang is professor of cardiovascular medicine at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China. He is director of the Shanghai Institute of Hypertension and director of the Centre for Epidemiological Studies and Clinical Trials, Ruijin Hospital.

He studied medicine at Henan Medical University, Zhengzhou, and specialized in cardiovascular medicine at the Cardiovascular Institute and Fuwai Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing. He received his doctoral degree in medical sciences (PhD) from the University of Leuven, Belgium, where he worked as a visiting professor for 7 years.

He coordinated database management and statistical analysis of the Systolic Hypertension in China trial (Syst-China), the first large-scale hypertension trial in the Chinese population. At present, he is coordinating several multicentre randomized clinical trials and population cohort studies in China. He has published more than 180 articles on hypertension in the international literature and more than 100 articles in the Chinese literature, and has lectured extensively in national and international conferences.  

Dr Maria-Christina Zennaro
INSERM Research Director, Paris Cardiovascular Research Institute and Associated Investigator, Genetics Department of the European Hospital Georges Pompidou in Paris, France

She received her MD and board certification in Endocrinology at the University of Padova (Italy) and completed her PhD in Molecular Endocrinology at the University Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris (France). In 1998 she obtained a tenured position at INSERM (National Institute of Health and Medical Research) and since 2004 she leads a research group investigating the genetic mechanisms of aldosterone-related disorders. She is principal investigator of the PHA1.NET network on pesudohypoaldosteronism type 1 at the laboratory of genetics at HEGP, which is the French referral center for the genetic diagnosis of the disease. Her group has made important contributions towards the understanding of the genetic and molecular determinants of PHA1 and on the molecular dissection of mineralocorticoid receptor structure and function. More recently, her lab has developed a genome-wide strategy to explore the genetics and genomics of primary aldosteronism. She is coordinator and project leader of an ANR (French Research Agency) funded research network on the integrated study of primary aldosteronism.

Maria-Christina Zennaro has been awarded for her work by the Italian Societies of Internal Medicine, Hypertension, Endocrinology, the French Society of Nephrology and the International Aldosterone Conference. She is Treasurer of the European Section of Aldosterone council (ESAC) and has been elected head of the APA working group of the European Network for the Study of Adrenal Tumors (ENS@T). She has been a member of the INSERM scientific commissions and of the scientific council of the national research program “Endocrine Disruptors”. She serves a reviewer for multiple national and international funding organizations and journals and is member of the Editorial Board of the journal Endocrinology.

Dr Robert Carey
University of Virginia School of Medicine, USA

An internationally recognized leader in endocrinology, Dr Carey has focused his clinical interest in cardiovascular endocrinology, adrenal disorders and hypertension and his research on the hormonal control of blood pressure and hypertension.  Major discoveries include the first identification and characterization of the intrarenal renin-angiotensin system and the intrarenal dopaminergic system as independent tissue hormonal systems, the tissue distribution and functions of the dopamine D1-like receptor family and the angiotensin type-2 (AT2 ) receptor and the role of renal cyclic GMP  in the control of sodium excretion and blood pressure. 

Dr Carey received his medical degree from Vanderbilt University, completed his residency in medicine at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and fellowships in endocrinology at Vanderbilt and in hypertension at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School  in London, England.  Dr Carey began his career in academic medicine at the University of Virginia in 1973.  As Director of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism from 1978-1986, he developed the program into one of the best in the United States. He was Dean of the School of Medicine 1986-2002.

Dr Carey is author or co-author of over 320 scientific articles and author/editor of three books.  He has been President of The Endocrine Society, Chair of the Council for High Blood Pressure Research of the American Heart Association (AHA) and of the AHA Council Operations Committee.   Dr Carey is currently Principal Investigator of three NIH grants for laboratory and patient-oriented research in hypertension. 

Dr Carey is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the Association of American Physicians and the American Society for Clinical Investigation.    He was recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Consortium of Southeast Hypertension Centers and the Irving Page/Alva Bradley Lifetime Achievement Award of the Council for High Blood Pressure Research..  He received the Distinguished Physician Award of The Endocrine Society, the AHA Scientific Councils Distinguished Achievement Award and the Robert Tigerstedt Distinguished Scientist Award of the American Society of Hypertension.  In 2003, Dr Carey received the Thomas Jefferson Award, the highest honor bestowed by the University of Virginia, for transforming academic medicine at the University.

Dr Hiroshi Okamura
Department of Systems Biology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Japan

Dr Hitoshi Okamura is a Professor of Department of Systems Biology in Kyoto University Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences. He received BA, MD and PhD in Kyoto Prfectural University of Medicine. Before the present status, he was the Professor of Brain Sciences in Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine between 1995-2008. Dr Okamura begins his circadian study from 1982 by the peptide work in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) using the technique of histochemistry. He established quantitative histochemistry in 80's, and in vitro slice culture of SCN in early 90's. In Kobe, Dr Okamura had his own laboratory, and he and his team discovered a number of important molecular mechanisms in mammals including cloning clock genes, cell rhythm at single cell level, clock-regulation of cell cycle timing, and transduction of rhythm signals in the body. After moving to Kyoto in 2007, Dr Okamura and his team concentrated their work in the theme of Clock and Diseases. They found novel gene in salt-induced hypertension from mice with dyregulated clock. They are now working on the treatment and prevention of life-style related diseases including hypertension, metabolic syndrome and obesity, diabetes and cancer, besides the previous ongoing study on circadian rhythm sleep disorders such as DSPS and jet-lag. Dr Okamura received Medal with Purple Ribbon from Japanese Government for his contribution to the circadian clock study.

Professor Thomas Unger
Institute of Pharmacology, Charité -Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany

Professor Thomas Unger holds the Chair of Pharmacology and is Director of the Institute of Pharmacology at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. He is also the Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Research (CCR) at the Charité, Berlin and the Chairman of the German Institute for High Blood Pressure Research in Berlin (DIB). Between 1994 and 2001, he was Director of the Institute of Pharmacology at the University of Kiel, Germany. Professor Unger studied medicine in Germany and the UK, and gained his MD from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He then carried out postdoctoral research at the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal, Canada, and the Department of Pharmacology in Heidelberg, where he received his PhD in Pharmacology. Until 1994, Professor Unger held professorships in pharmacology and hypertension research at the University of Heidelberg. In recognition of his work, Professor Unger has received the German Hypertension Society´s Franz Gross Award for Hypertension Research, the Meilahti Lecture Award of the Medical Faculty, University of Helsinki, Finland, the Björn Folkow Award of the European Society of Hypertension, and the Robert Tigerstedt Award of the Finnish Hypertension Society. Professor Unger is vice chair of Berlin-Brandenburg Cardiovascular Society and a member of the German Societies of Pharmacology, Cardiology and Hypertension (Council Member 1995–2001), the International Society of Hypertension, the European Society of Hypertension (Council Member 1989–97), the European Council for Blood Pressure and Cardiovascular Research (President, 2000–2), the Inter-American Society of Hypertension, He is Honorary Member of the British, Finnish and Italian Hypertension Society and a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. Professor Unger has authored more than 700 scientific publications. He is or has been a member of the Editorial Boards of the American Journal of Physiology, American Journal of Hypertension, Biochemical Pharmacology, Blood Pressure, Cardiovascular Drugs and Therapy, Clinical and Experimental Hypertension, Hypertension, Hypertension Research, Journal of Hypertension, Fundamental and Clinical Pharmacology, Physiological Genomics, Regulatory Peptides, High Blood Pressure & Cardiovascular Prevention.

Dr David Webb
Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology, University of Edinburgh, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Edinburgh's Hypertension Excellence Centre, UK

David Webb graduated in medicine in London, and began his research at the MRC Blood Pressure Unit in Glasgow. He holds the Chair of Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Edinburgh, is a consultant physician at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, and runs Edinburgh's Hypertension Excellence Centre in. His work on endothelial function and arterial stiffness, much of which focuses on the endothelin system, and on the investigation and effective treatment of patients with complex hypertension and chronic kidney disease, is undertaken in Edinburgh's BHF Centre of Research Excellence, within the Centre for Cardiovascular Science that he created over 10 years ago through BHF and Wellcome Trust funding. His work is mainly translational and he provides leadership to two new national clinical PhD training initiatives in translational medicine and therapeutics (TMAT), funded by the Wellcome Trust and MRC. He has been awarded the SKB Silver Prize for Research, and the Lilly Gold Medal for distinction in clinical pharmacology, from the British Pharmacological Society, and delivered the RD Wright (Howard Florey) Lecture to the High Blood Pressure Council of Australia in 1999.

Dr Giuseppe Mancia
Head, Division and Department of Internal Medicine, San Gerardo Hospital, Monza, Italy

Giuseppe Mancia is Head of the Division and Department of Internal Medicine at the San Gerardo Hospital, Monza, and Past-Chairman of the Department of the Clinical Medicine and Prevention at the University of Milan-Bicocca. He is past-President of the International Society of Hypertension (ISH), the European Society of Hypertension (ESH), the European Society of Clinical Investigation and the Italian Society of Hypertension (SIIA). He is past-Chairman of the Working Group on Hypertension and the Heart of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). He has been ex-officio member of the Executive Council of the American Society of Hypertension (1996-2008), chairman of the WHO/ISH Liaison Committee on Hypertension, member of the writing committee of the JACC and WHO guidelines on hypertension and of the ESH cardiovascular prevention guidelines.

He is ordinary or honorary member of several scientific Societies and has received as number of research awards, among which the Heymans Award of the International Society of Pharmacology, the Volhard and the Tigersted  Awards of the International Society of Hypertension, the Folkow Award of the European Society of Hypertension, the International Arrigo Recordati Prize, the Invernizzi Prize of Medicine, the Spinoza Honorary Chair of the University of Amsterdam, the Gold Medal of the Lorenzini Foundation, the Honorary membership  of the University and Scientific Academy of Cordoba. He has received the Degree Honoris Causa in Medicine by the University of Gdansk. Giuseppe Mancia’s research interests are pathophysiology, clinical pharmacology and therapy of hypertension, congestive heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases.

Dr Iris Jaffe
Tufts Medical Center, Molecular Cardiology Research Institute, Boston, USA

Iris Jaffe is Assistant Professor of Medicine and of Cell, Molecular & Developmental Biology at Tufts University School of Medicine and the co-Director of the Molecular Cardiology Research Center at Tufts Medical Center.  She received her M.D. degree and her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.  Dr Jaffe pursued her training in Internal Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston followed by a fellowship in Cardiology at Brigham and Women's Hospital also in Boston.  She completed her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Michael Mendelsohn in the Molecular Cardiology Research Institute at Tufts Medical Center. 

The Jaffe laboratory studies the role of vascular mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) in vascular cell function and disease.  Her lab was the first to demonstrate the presence of functional mineralocorticoid receptors in human vascular smooth muscle and endothelial cells that can directly modulate vascular gene expression.  More recently the lab has explored novel mechanisms of gene regulation by MR in human vascular cells and has employed animal models to study the role of MR in vascular dysfunction and atherosclerosis. Dr Jaffe has received multiple awards for her work including being a finalist for the prestigious Irvine Page Young Investigator Award from the American Heart Association.

Dr William Young Jr
Professor of Medicine in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Vice-Chair of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, Metabolism, and Nutrition, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA

Dr William F. Young, Jr., is Professor of Medicine in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Vice-Chair of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, Metabolism, and Nutrition, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA. He is the recipient of multiple education awards: the Distinguished Mayo Clinician Award (a distinction given to no more than 4 Mayo Clinic physicians annually); the Mayo Clinic “Endocrinology Teacher of the Year Award” from the endocrinology fellows; the “Distinction in Clinical Endocrinology Award” from the American College of Endocrinology; and the Distinguished Physician Award from The Endocrine Society. In 2010 he received a named Professorship —the highest academic distinction at Mayo Clinic.

He is President-Elect of the Endocrine Society—with 14,700 members, the Endocrine Society. He will be President of the Endocrine Society June, 2012 to June, 2013.

Dr Young’s clinical research focuses on primary aldosteronism and pheochromocytoma.  He has published over 225 articles on endocrine hypertension and adrenal and pituitary disorders. He has presented at over 300 national and international meetings and he has been an invited visiting Professor for more than 100 medical institutions.