National Institutes of Health   Department of Health and Human Services

mcmurty

Ivan F. McMurtry, PhD
University of South Alabama School of Medicine
Mobile, Alabama

Presentation Title
RhoA/Rho Kinase-Mediated Vasoconstriction in Rat Models of Pulmonary Hypertension (Summary of Presentation)

Dr. McMurtry is Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of South Alabama School of Medicine in Mobile. He began as an instructor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (UCHSC) in 1976, became an associate professor in 1983 and full professor in 1993, a post he held until November 2006, when he assumed his current position.  From 1998 to 2006 he also directed the UCHSC’s Cardiovascular Pulmonary (CVP) Research Laboratory.

In 1968 Dr. McMurtry earned his MS in physiology from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and in 1973 his PhD in physiology from Colorado State University in Fort Collins.  He was a postdoctoral fellow in the CVP Research Laboratory from 1973 to 1976.  

Chief among Dr. McMurtry’s research interests are the control of the pulmonary circulation, the biochemical and molecular mechanisms of acute and chronic hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction, and the interactions between endothelium and vascular smooth muscle.  The primary goal of his studies is to improve understanding of the cellular mechanisms that control pulmonary vascular tone and structure and thereby provide information that could potentially prevent or treat pulmonary hypertension.  He is currently focusing on the role of RhoA/Rho kinase signaling in the pathogenesis of pulmonary hypertension.  Co-author of numerous publications on these subjects, Dr. McMurtry was an associate editor of the American Journal of Physiology: Lung Cellular and Molecular Biology from 1994 to 2005,  and has served as a member of the editorial boards of AJP’s Heart and Circulatory Physiology and the Journal of Applied Physiology.  He was formerly the principal investigator of the CVP Research Laboratory’s program project grant and training grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and remains a participating investigator on these awards.