Michael Stowasser Annual Meetings of the Endocrine Society of Australia and Society for Reproductive Biology and Australia and New Zealand Bone and Mineral Society 2016

Michael Stowasser

MS has >30 years clinical research experience in pathogenesis and management of hypertension (HT), including endocrine varieties such as primary aldosteronism (PA). Working within the Greenslopes Hospital Hypertension Unit (GHHU), he helped mentor Richard Gordon demonstrate that PA is 10 times more common than previously thought and accounts for ~10% of HT, making it the commonest specifically treatable variety, and in the description of a new familial form (FH-II) which facilitated elucidation of its genetic basis. The combined GHHU/Princess Alexandra Hospital HT Unit (which MS set up in 2000) has possibly the largest series (>2400) worldwide of patients with PA who have been meticulously studied and documented, helping MS to become internationally recognized as an authority on pathogenesis, diagnostic workup and management of PA. MS served as member of an international Task Force to develop the first guidelines for diagnosis and management of PA (J Clin Endocrinol Metab; cited >1000 times). MS conceived, developed and validated the seated saline suppression test which has since become the favoured method for confirming the diagnosis of PA in Australia and a growing number of overseas institutions. He has also made major contributions to the understanding of how various physiological and pharmacological factors affect the aldosterone/renin ratio as a screening test for PA and in optimizing approaches to adrenal venous sampling, the most reliable method of differentiating unilateral (surgically curable) from bilateral varieties. He has run or participated in >20 clinical drug trials, including on patients with PA. MS has published or in press 1 book, 16 chapters for textbooks of medicine, and >230 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. His journal publications have been cited >11,000 times ("h" index 53). Since 2017, MS has received ~$12 million in research grant support. MS has collaborated with researchers in >30 international Units and all Australian states. He is currently one of 6 CIs on a highly prestigious Leducq Foundation Transatlantic Networks of Excellence Program Grant examining the mechanisms by which potassium lowers blood pressure. MS is immediate Past President of the Asian-Pacific Society of Hypertension and of the High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia.