Faculty Directory

Kathryn Sandberg is Director of the Center for the Study of Sex Differences and a Professor in the Department of Nephrology & Hypertension. Sandberg's laboratory focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying the sex differences in the incidence and rate of progression of hypertension and associated cardiovascular and renal disease. The incidence and rate of progression of these disease states is higher in men than age-matched women until women reach menopause. After menopause, women rapidly catch up with men. Some of the major risk factors in these disease processes are increased activity of the renin angiotensin system, the presence of testosterone, and estrogen deficiency. Sandberg investigates the gonadal steroid regulation of the renin angiotensin system. We study the gene regulation of angiotensin receptors (AT1 and AT2), which bind angiotensin II, the key effector hormone of the renin angiotensin system. Investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying the physiological control of angiotensin receptors will lend insight into how angiotensin receptor expression is altered during aging and pathophysiological states including end-stage renal disease, salt-sensitive hypertension, renovascular hypertension and left ventricular remodeling.