Hypertension Center changes name, leadership with new focus on cardiovascular and metabolic diseases

A new scientific center at UF Health aims to unite cardiovascular and metabolic disease researchers. The University of Florida renamed the Hypertension Center to The Center for Integrative Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases in June with a broader focus on promoting research excellence in these areas.

Eric Krause
Eric Krause, Ph.D., an associate professor of pharmacodynamics, will serve as director of the Center for Integrative Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases.

Eric Krause, Ph.D., an associate professor of pharmacodynamics in the UF College of Pharmacy, was appointed director of the Center for Integrative Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases, while three UF faculty from the UF Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy will serve as associate directors.

The new name and vision for the center will support an emerging group of more than 25 UF faculty researching cardio-metabolic diseases, including Type 2 diabetes, obesity, chronic kidney disease, stroke and atherosclerosis. While many of these researchers have expertise in hypertension, they also broadly focus on understanding pathophysiology and treatment of metabolic diseases. The new center is expected to enrich research collaborations in publishing high-impact manuscripts and securing grant funding.

The Hypertension Center at the University of Florida was established in 1992. Christopher Wilcox, M.D., then Division Chief of Nephrology at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Gainesville was the inaugural director, and Charles Wood, M.D., a professor and chair of physiology and functional genomics in the UF College of Medicine, served most recently as director.