UI appoints head of pharmacology

IOWA CITY -- University of Iowa Health Care leaders have announced the appointment of Curt Sigmund as professor and head of the Department of Pharmacology in the Carver College of Medicine.

Sigmund, a faculty member in the departments of internal medicine and molecular physiology and biophysics, will become head of pharmacology July 1, pending approval by the state Board of Regents. He will retain joint appointments with both departments.

Donna Hammond, UI professor of pharmacology and anesthesia, served as interim head of pharmacology for the past four years.

Sigmund's research focuses on the mechanisms of blood pressure regulation. He is the primary investigator on four grants from the National Institutes of Health. He was recently named as chair of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Program Project Review Committee.

Sigmund received bachelor's and master's degrees in biology and a doctoral degree in molecular and cellular biology from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo.

He joined the UI Carver College of Medicine faculty in 1991. In 2008, he was selected to hold the Roy J. Carver Chair in Hypertension Research.