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Who is Jeff Sands?
Researcher and Clinician



Jeff was born in Boston, MA. When he was young, he loved hearing about the space program and the astronauts and then about the US going to the moon in the 1960s. That started his interest in science. In addition, he always enjoyed math. However, he found that he liked applying math to solve problems more than he liked doing pure math.

Experiments Beat Math
When it came time to pick a college, Jeff chose Harvard College. He chose Harvard because he felt that he would get a quality liberal arts education while also getting a solid math and science education. While in college, Jeff began looking for a project for his senior honor thesis.

Originally, he wanted to do look at a specific part of the kidney and then make a mathematical model of how it worked. However, his advisor sent him to see a physiologist who studied the kidney (renal physiologist) at Harvard Medical School. In his lab, Jeff was allowed to design and then actually do his own experiments on the kidney using a method called electrophysiology, where you study the electrical impulses that ions (like sodium and potassium) make as they move across the membrane. He found he really liked doing experiments and decided he wanted to continue studying renal physiology and doing research. That meant he needed to get a higher degree after he finished college in 1977 with his Bachelor’s degree in applied math.

M.D. or Ph.D.?
As he was trying to decide between getting an M.D. or a Ph.D. degree, he talked to his advisors. They suggested he should get an M.D. degree, since they thought that researchers with M.D. degrees had an easier time getting grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is the major source of grants for scientists to support their research. Of course, as it turns out, the opposite is true. However, Jeff followed their advice and applied to medical school at Boston University School of Medicine.

Medical School
Once in medical school Jeff studied internal medicine and then did a fellowship in nephrology (study of the renal system) so that he could get back to doing renal physiology. He found that studying how urine is concentrated was an excellent combination of applied math, mathematical modeling, and intriguing physiological questions.

After Dr. Sands graduated from Medical School in 1981, he first did an Internal Medicine residency at the University of Chicago for his medical training. After 2 years there, he moved to Bethesda, MD, to work at the National Institutes of Health to get more research training (called a postdoctoral fellowship) in renal physiology. In 1988, he moved to Atlanta, GA, to do a clinical nephrology fellowship at Emory University. The following year he became a faculty member there.

Being an M.D. at a Medical School
Currently, Dr. Sands is a Professor in two departments (Dept. of Medicine and Dept. of Physiology) and is Director of the Renal Division at Emory University. His job involves research, teaching, caring for patients, and working on committees and other duties like that for his departments and university. His major focus is on his NIH-funded renal physiology research.

Dr. Sands’ research is trying to understand the physiology of the inner medulla area of the kidney and the mechanism by which urine is concentrated. He is currently studying the molecular physiology of urea transporters and water channels. He uses rats in his studies that mimic both the normal and diseased human conditions (like diabetes).

In addition, he gives lectures to medical students and teaches students, residents, and fellows on rounds in the teaching hospitals. As Director of the Renal Division, Dr. Sands leads a group of 25-30 faculty and 15 fellows.

For Fun
Dr. Sands enjoys playing tennis and bridge, watching sports, and doing things with his kids.

He also is active in his professional societies (American Physiological Society and American Society for Nephrology). For APS, he has dual roles, that of Editor of American Journal of Physiology: Renal Physiology and an elected member of the APS Council, which governs the Society.