Dr. R. Ariel Gomez with the Pediatric Center of Excellence in Nephrology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine will be presenting at the Metabolism, Obesity and Diabetes Seminar on October 26th at 10:30 am in Schwarz Auditorium. The title of his talk is “Regulation of Renin Cell Identity and Homeostasis.”
Dr. R. Ariel Gomez received his medical degree from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1975. After completing his Pediatric residency at the Hospital de Niños in Buenos Aires, he served as Chief Resident followed by fellowships in Pediatric Nephrology at the University of Iowa (1980-1983) where he pursued research in fetal physiology under the mentorship of Jean Robillard and at the University of California, San Francisco, (1983-1984) under the mentorship of Malcom Holliday. He joined the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Virginia in 1984 where he made fundamental contributions to our understanding of the origin, identity and fate of renin cells. He showed that acquisition and maintenance of renin cell identity are crucial for blood pressure and fluid homeostasis as well as nephron-vascular development. Having defined the major transcriptional and posttranscriptional factors that regulate the renin phenotype, and the genes that characterize it, he is exploring the chromatin states and gene-gene interactions that ultimately control the uniqueness of juxtaglomerular cells and the memory of smooth muscle cells to regain the renin phenotype when homeostasis is threatened.
Dr. Gomez served as Chief of Pediatric Nephrology (1991-2000), and Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies (2001-2008), a University-wide, cabinet level position to administer research for the ten schools and multiple Institutes and Centers at UVA. He is currently the founding Director of the Child Health Research Center, and Director of the NIDDK Center of Excellence in Pediatric Nephrology. Dr. Gomez holds the Harrison Distinguished Professorship in Pediatrics and Biology. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (1995), and a Fellow of the Council for High Blood Pressure Research, AHA (1988). He is a member of the Leadership Committee and Program Committees, Council for High Blood Pressure Research, AHA.
He is the recipient among others, of the Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Hypertension (1999), the Syntex Scholars Prize for Excellence in Cardiovascular Science (1988), the Peterson’s award for innovation in promoting inclusiveness in Graduate Education (2007, Council of Graduate Schools, Washington DC), a MERIT awardee from NHLBI (2007), the University of Virginia Distinguished Scientist Award (2015) and the Excellence in Hypertension Research Award (Novartis Award) from the Council on Hypertension, AHA (2016). This year he will receive the 2017 Dean’s award for Excellence in Research from the University of Virginia and deliver the James. J Smith Memorial Lecture at the Medical College of Wisconsin.