Dr. Sigmund received his undergraduate education at the State University of New York in Buffalo, NY, and his PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the same institution. He was originally trained as a classical bacterial geneticist but recognized how new tools designed to manipulate the mammalian genome would provide a mechanism to link genetics and physiology. He sought postdoctoral training in this area under the mentorship of Kenneth W. Gross at Roswell Park Cancer Institute and helped establish a collaboration between Dr. Gross and Dr. Victor J. Dzau to physiologically examine some of the first mice with genetic alterations in the renin-angiotensin system. In order to capitalize on the power of genetics and physiology, he accepted a faculty position in the Cardiovascular Research Center at the University of Iowa in 1991 where he established a collaboration with Dr. Jean Robillard, now Dean of the College of Medicine, to measure arterial pressure in genetically altered mice. Dr. Sigmund is currently a Professor of Internal Medicine and Molecular Physiology and Biophysics in the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA, where he directs the Transgenic Animal Facility and the Center on the Functional Genomics of Hypertension
Sigmund’s research initially focused on the molecular biology and genetics of the renin-angiotensin system and its role in hypertension, and more recently has been expanded to include the regulation of vascular function by the ligand activated transcription factors such as PPARγ. His expertise is on the development of unique mouse models from which to study these systems in vivo. He has published over 150 papers including, in 1999, the first research paper published in the APS Journal Physiological Genomics. This paper entitled “Novel mechanism of hypertension revealed by cell-specific targeting of human angiotensinogen in transgenic mice” provided the first genetic evidence that abnormalities in renal angiotensin-II levels can cause hypertension even when circulating levels of angiotensin-II are normal.
Dr. Sigmund has been recognized with research awards from the American Federation for Medical Research, American Society of Hypertension, and in 2000 received the Henry Pickering Bowditch Award of the American Physiological Society. Dr. Sigmund will be completing a 6-year term as Chair of the Joint Program Committee in 2007 and was previously an Associate Editor of AJP - Endocrinology and Metabolism, Physiological Genomics, and Hypertension, a journal of the American Heart Association.