Head – Markus Schlaich
Dr Schlaich, a nephrologist and hypertension specialist, sums up his team's research and clinical in few words: "Treat the kidney to protect the heart," he says.
"Commonly people think about the heart when they think about blood pressure, but the kidneys are the single most important organ in the regulation of blood pressure", Dr Schlaich says.
The team's research examines the relationship between the kidneys and the sympathetic nervous system and one of his main areas of interest is the neural control of high blood pressure.
He says it is not well understood that the sympathetic nervous system is crucial to the body’s blood pressure regulation.
"The kidneys also play an exceedingly important role in sympathetic activity and can trigger an increase in central sympathetic activity that in turn leads to an increase in blood pressure."
Dr Schlaich's research recognises the interplay between the kidneys, the brain and the heart. Understanding that the major trigger for high blood pressure is activation of the sympathetic nervous system, his research looks at how that system is activated in the first place. His hypothesis is that any sort of damage to the kidney triggers an increase in sympathetic activation in the brain and once that happens, all the other organs are affected because the sympathetic nervous system innervates the heart, the blood vessels and the kidneys.