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David Mattson

David Mattson, PhD

Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University

David Mattson, PhD, is a professor and chair of the department of physiology at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. He is also an APS Councilor. He’s been an APS member since 1997.

APS members are doing amazing things. We asked David Mattson, PhD—one of our esteemed member-researchers—to tell us about his research and its implications on our understanding of life and health. He also shares how he uses his vacations to immerse himself in the diversity of life on Earth.

What do you do?

Work in our laboratory is aimed at gaining an understanding of the role of the kidney in the development of salt-sensitive hypertension (elevated blood pressure that increases with salt intake). We are particularly interested in the interactions of the immune system with the kidney and the vasculature. Our goal is to understand how these important systems in our body work together in health and in disease.

Give it context.

Patients whose arterial blood pressure changes in response to increased dietary salt make up about half of the hypertensive population. These salt-sensitive hypertensive subjects experience more cardiovascular-related disease and have greater mortality than patients with normal blood pressure or even those with salt-resistant hypertension. A greater understanding of the mechanisms mediating salt-sensitive hypertension will be beneficial in the development of more effective preventive approaches and therapies.

What outside of physiological science inspires you?

I majored in biology as an undergraduate student, and I constantly regret that I have not sufficiently retained the knowledge gained in botany, zoology, ornithology and the other fundamental courses. In recent years, my wife and I have become more and more captivated by the diversity of life on the earth, and we try to plan a yearly vacation to a spot where we can experience the natural world—be it at the top of a mountain, the bottom of a canyon, or beneath the surface of the ocean.