Richard Lifton, MD, PhD

Dr. Richard Lifton is chairman of the Department of Genetics and director of an NIH Specialized Center of Research in Hypertension as well as professor of medicine and biochemistry at Yale University. 

Dr. Lifton is renowned for his work on the genetics of hypertension. His group discovered the genetic basis for several Mendelian forms of hypertension, including glucocorticoid-remediable aldosteronism, the syndrome of apparent mineralocorticoid excess, and Liddle's Syndrome. These studies demonstrated the key role of genetic abnormalities of renal sodium transport in the etiology of these forms of hypertension. 

Dr. Lifton's search for genes that cause hypertension began with the kidney because of previous work by Guyton and colleagues demonstrating that hypertension cannot be sustained without an abnormality of kidney function. 

Dr. Lifton has received numerous awards for his research including the 1998 Homer Smith Award of the American Society of Nephrology. He serves on several advisory groups for the National Institutes of Health, including committees for the human genome project.