Hypertension Specialist and Nephrologist, Friedrich C. Luft, Turns 70 years

Walter Rosenthal MD, scientific director of the MDC, congratulated him with the words: “We sincerely appreciate the scientific expertise and great dedication with which Fred Luft is engaged in the training and advancing young clinical researchers. The younger generation can benefit tremendously from his experience.” Luft commented: “My job is my hobby – I really love my work!”

Professor Friedrich Luft (Photo: David Ausserhofer/Copyright: MDC)

Together with researchers of the MDC Berlin-Buch, Luft undertook genetic studies of families with Mendelian hypertension. In a Turkish family, he identified a specific gene region on chromosome 12p. Nihat Bilginturan MD, from the University of Ankara, had first described the family 30 years earlier. Bilgituran had noticed the family because the family members with high blood pressure also invariably had shortened fingers and toes (brachydactyly). In contrast, the fingers and toes of the healthy family members were normal. The investigators have provided antihypertensive treatment for all affected members and thus far, no further strokes or other disasters have occurred. The Luft group has since identified five other families world-wide with this problem and since the hypertension closely resembles essential hypertension, they hope that elucidation of the mechanisms will have broad-range implications.

Common wisdom assumes that a high salt intake causes hypertension. Luft has long-focused on the salt-intake hypothesis. Forty years ago, he and other physicians studied the effects of different salt-ingestion levels on the renal sodium handling. This organ functions as a blood pressure regulator. Their results showed no association between salt intake and high blood pressure. According to the study, the kidneys of subjects who had ingested a pinch of salt functioned equally well as those of subjects who had ingested 83 grams of salt daily, which corresponds to about 6 tablespoons of salt. The data defined the limits of renal sodium regulation in man. Luft says that the relevance of the study to human hypertension is uncertain.

The Luft group, together with researchers in Erlangen, Regensburg, Helsinki, and Vienna, elucidated the relationship between salt intake, body water homeostasis and blood pressure regulation further. The investigators discovered a new storage area for salt within the skin what involves sodium-binding to proteoglycans, a common connective tissue molecule. If this storage process is disturbed, the animals become hypertensive. This process and its significance for cardiovascular diseases in humans are still not completely understood.

The group used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and succeeded in making common table salt (sodium) “visible” in the body. With this technique, the sodium content of different tissues (muscle and skin) can be determined. Recently, initial results were published in normal'>Hypertension (2012). Together with the physicist Thoralf Niendorf from the ultrahigh field MR facility of the MDC, studies on a larger scale will be conducted in Berlin and elsewhere with healthy volunteers and patients. The studies will investigate the effect of different salt intake levels on the organism. Dialysis patients, heart failure patients, and persons with liver failure who cannot excrete salt properly through their own kidneys are a particular focal point.

New therapy for vasculitis

Luft recruited and directed the focus of numerous younger colleagues. In conjunction with Wolf-Hagen Schunck PhD and Duska Dragun MD, as well as with investigators from the Austin Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, the group showed that patients with specific catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene variants are at high risk to develop circulatory shock and acute kidney injury after heart surgery. Ralph Kettritz MD and Luft discovered a hitherto-fore unknown inflammatory process in blood vessels involving microparticle transfer. They also showed that inflammation can be blocked by drugs that are normally used to inhibit thrombosis. A new approach to vasculitis treatment could ensue.

A Berlin-Born American in Berlin-Buch

Friedrich Luft was born in Berlin in 1942 and grew up in the U.S., where he first studied zoology and then medicine. From 1975 to 1989 he was a professor in the Department of Nephrology and Intensive Medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, IN.

After a research stay at the University of Heidelberg (1984-1986) Luft, who is a US citizen, returned to the U.S. In 1989 he accepted an appointment at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. In 1992 he came to Berlin-Buch to become head of the Department of Nephrology, Genetics and Hypertension: His clinical department resided at the Franz Volhard Clinic for Cardiovascular Diseases and the Klinikum-Buch.

Luft was recruited to the MDC and to a position of academic leadership (now Charité) in 1992. He headed the Department of Internal Medicine/Nephrology at the Franz-Volhard Clinic (later Helios Klinikum Berlin-Buch). At the request of peer reviewers, Luft was asked to head the experimental and clinical research center (ECRC) in Berlin-Buch in 2005. This unit now serves as a major interface between basic MDC research and clinical research at the Charité. His mission is to “infect” young clinicians with the aim of becoming clinician-scientists. Luft is Helen C. Levitt Visiting Professor at the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, USA. A similar cooperation is planned with Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.

Professor Friedrich Luft has received numerous accolades in Germany and abroad, including the Lingen Foundation Prize (Cologne) in 2001, the Richard Bright Award of the American Society for Hypertension (ASH, 2005), the Hypertension Research Award of the American Heart Association (2007), and an honorary doctorate from the University of Pécs in Hungary. In 2002, Luft was elected to membership into the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. In 2008, he received the Franz Volhard Medal of the German Society for Nephrology. His favorite award is that of Lehrbär (formidable teacher) of medical students of the Charité, since it comes from the students rather than from medical school committees. He received this award in 2008 in recognition of his outstanding teaching achievement.

Contact

Barbara Bachtler
Press Department
Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch
in the Helmholtz Association
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