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 Education

Undergraduate  University of Virginia    1981  BA History 
Medical School  University of Virginia, School of Medicine    1982  Medical Degree 
Graduate  University of Alabama at Birmingham    1989  Postdoctoral Internal Medicine 
Graduate  University of Alabama at Birmingham    1993  Postdoctoral Hypertension and Vascular Biology 
Graduate  University of Alabama at Birmingham    2003  Postdoctoral Sleep Medicine 

Biographical Sketch 
Dr. David Calhoun is a Professor of Medicine, Vascular Biology and Hypertension Program and Center for Sleep/Wake Disorders at The University of Alabama at Birmingham. He earned undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.

After completing his medical residency at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, he did a post-doctoral research fellowship in vascular biology under the tutelage of Dr. Suzanne Oparil. He currently has joint faculty appointments in the UAB Hypertension Program and in the Center for Sleep/Wake Disorders. Dr. Calhoun is an active clinical investigator.

He has an extensive bibliography in clinical hypertension, including over 170 journal articles and book chapters. His major research focus has been on defining causes of resistant hypertension. In that regard, Dr. Calhoun has made important contributions defining aldosteronism as common cause of resistant hypertension. Currently, his laboratory is evaluating a proposed phenotype of refractory hypertension.

Research/Clinical Interest
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Description
I am currently a Professor of Medicine in the Vascular Biology and Hypertension, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Medical Director of the UAB Hypertension Program. The primary focus of my laboratory for the last 10 years has been to identify mechanisms of resistant hypertension, and important risk factor for heart failure. These findings are then applied in the development of treatment strategies to enhance management of difficult-to-control hypertension. Important scientific discoveries from my laboratory have included: 1) identification of hyperaldosteronism as a common cause of resistant hypertension; 2) demonstration of the broad benefit of mineralocorticoid receptor antagonism to treat resistant hypertension; 3) establishing that a high degree of salt sensitivity contributes importantly to resistance to antihypertensive therapies; 4) identification of aldosterone excess as an important mediator of severity of obstructive sleep apnea in patients with resistant hypertension; 5) demonstration of ability of aldosterone antagonism to reduce severity of obstructive sleep apnea in patients with resistant hypertension. I am also director of our program’s Hemodynamic and Vascular Laboratory which conducts studies of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, pulse wave velocity, central aortic pressure, and flow-mediated dilatation of the brachial artery by high-resolution ultrasonography. We have been doing these studies for over 20 years in support of my own investigator-initiated studies and in support of multiple industry and NIH sponsored trials. During this time, I have been faculty mentor on 5 NIH-funded training programs for pre- or post-doctoral students at UAB. Within the last 10 years, I have mentored 11 postdoctoral fellows; of these, 5 currently hold faculty positions at various Universities world-wide and one is medical director for a large pharmaceutical company.