Yale University’s Richard Lifton, M.D., Ph.D., winner of a $3 million, 2014 Breakthrough Prizein Life Sciences for discovering genes and biochemical mechanisms that cause hypertension, will deliver the next Flexner Discovery Lecture March 6.
Lifton’s lecture, entitled “Discovery of disease genes and pathways by next-generation DNA sequencing,” will begin at 4 p.m. in 208 Light Hall. It is sponsored by the HHMI/VUMC Certificate Program in Molecular Medicine and the Department of Medicine.
Lifton is Sterling Professor and chair of the Department of Genetics, and professor of Medicine (Nephrology) at Yale University School of Medicine, an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Lifton earned his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University. In 1994, he discovered the first mutation in the kidney that could cause severe hypertension.
Since then, according to his HHMI biography, he and his colleagues have identified mutations in 10 kidney genes that raise blood pressure, and mutations in nine other kidney genes that lower blood pressure, all by altering how the kidney regulates salt levels in the blood.
The Breakthrough Prizes in Life Sciences were first awarded in 2013. Rockefeller University’s Titia de Lange, Ph.D., recipient of the 2011 Vanderbilt Prize in Biomedical Science, was among 11 Breakthrough Prize winners last year.
For a complete schedule of the Flexner Discovery Lecture series and archived video of previous lectures, go to www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/discoveryseries.
