No. 11/May 17, 2005
Prof. Friedrich C. Luft
(Photo: Thomas Oberländer/Helios Clinics Berlin-Buch)
The American Society of Hypertension (ASH) has honored Prof.
Friedrich Luft from Berlin,
Germany with
the Richard Bright Award for clarifying mechanisms of how hypertension damages
the kidneys and leads to the development of severe renal disease. The physician
and scientist received the prize in a ceremony on May 17, 2005 in San Francisco, CA,
USA. Luft’s
career has been dedicated to translating basic research into the treatment of
cardiovascular disease in humans, and particularly, to training
physician-scientists in cardiovascular research, the ASH pointed out. The
prize, ($10,000) is named after the British physician Richard Bright (1789 –
1858). Bright first recognized renal disease as a specific entity. He could not
measure blood pressure, but recognized that renal and heart disease went
hand-in-hand. Bright is honored as the father of nephrology. Friedrich Luft
works in the Franz Volhard Clinic for Cardiovascular Diseases, Helios Klinikum
Berlin-Buch. The Franz Volhard Clinic is a part of the Medical Faculty of the
Charité, University Medicine, Berlin.
Friedrich Luft is responsible for a research group at the affiliated Max Delbrück
Center for Molecular
Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch.
Friedrich Luft was born in 1942 in Berlin. However, he grew
up in the USA
after his parents emigrated in 1947. He studied medicine at the Jefferson Medical
School in Philadelphia, PA, USA. He was Professor of Medicine
and Pharmacology at Indiana University School of Medicine until 1989. He then
came to Germany, first to
the University of
Erlangen but shortly
thereafter to Berlin-Buch. Luft has received numerous honors in the past,
including the Arthur Corcoran Award of the American Heart Association, the
Ernest Starling Award of the American Physiological Society, the Franz Gross
Award of the German Hypertension League, the Award of the Helmut and Ruth
Lingen Foundation (Cologne), as well as the Björn Folkow Prize of the European
Society for Hypertension. In 2002 he was elected as a member of the oldest Academy of Natural Sciences
in Germany,
the Leopoldina.
Barbara
Bachtler
Press
and Public Affairs
Max Delbrück
Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC)
Berlin-Buch
Robert-Rössle-Straße
10
13125 Berlin
Germany
Phone.:
+49 (0) 30 94 06 - 38 96
Fax: +49 (0) 30 94 06 - 38 33
e-mail:
presse@mdc-berlin.de
http://www.mdc-berlin.de/en/news
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