61st Annual Fall Conference and Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association Council for High Blood Pressure Research

Abstract

This issue of Hypertension contains selected manuscripts based on the presentations at the 61st Annual Fall Conference and Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association Council for High Blood Pressure Research, held September 26 to 29, 2007, in Tucson, Ariz. By all objective measures the council meeting was a great success, and we congratulate the members of the program committee chaired by Clinton Webb. The council meeting was preceded by a workshop on “New Developments in the Renin-Angiotensin System: the (Pro) Renin Receptor, Renin Inhibition and ACE2.” There were 702 registered attendees at the main council meeting, and 478 abstracts were submitted. The program committee selected 398 abstracts for presentation as oral and poster communications. In addition to the free communications, presentations by the award recipients and the special state-of-the-art lecturers all contributed to an excellent meeting. The 2007 Novartis Award, the most prestigious award in hypertension research, was presented to Friedrich C. Luft, MD (Figure 1). Professor Luft, Director of the Experimental and Clinical Research Center at the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, Germany, was honored for his discoveries in three areas of hypertension: (1) sodium intake, kidney function, and arterial pressure in humans; (2) immune mechanisms in hypertension; and (3) the genetics of hypertension. Professor Luft’s excellent lecture “Lost in Translation” recounted his work that identified a specific gene region on chromosome 12 in a family …