Lifton Honored by Two Medical Societies for Work on Hypertension

Richard P. Lifton, M.D., Sterling Professor and chair of the Department of Genetics at Yale and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute received the 2006 Robert Tigerstedt Award at the 21st Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Hypertension in Fukuoka, Japan.

The award is presented at each biennial meeting of ISH to an individual, group, or institution that has conducted distinguished research into the etiology, epidemiology, pathology, or treatment of high blood pressure.

Lifton was cited for his “pioneering work on the identification of mutations that cause human hypertension, which has identified the key role of renal salt handling in blood pressure regulation in humans. These findings have identified new therapeutic targets and have direct implications for the treatment of this common disease.”

Lifton was also selected to deliver the first Donald Seldin Lecture at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association (AHA) in Chicago. His talk was, “Molecular Genetics of Cardiovascular Risks: The Kidney as the Cause of Hypertension”

The lecture was established this year to honor Donald Seldin, M.D., who made seminal observations on salt and potassium transport in the kidney and has been a leader in understanding the relationships between renal and cardiovascular diseases, and to increase awareness of the rising epidemic of cardiovascular disease and mortality in patients with chronic kidney disease.

A member of the Yale faculty since 1993, Lifton is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the recipient of numerous awards for his research including the Basic Science Prize of the American Heart Association, the Homer Smith Award of the American Society of Nephrology, and the Richard Bright Award of the American Society of Hypertension