November 9, 2004, ST. LOUIS -- The Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation board of directors named Dwight A. Towler, M.D., Ph.D., as the new holder of the Ira M. Lang Chair at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Dr. Towler is chief of the Division of Bone and Mineral Diseases at Washington University School of Medicine. He is also an associate professor of medicine, and of molecular biology and pharmacology.
Dr. Towler says he is extremely grateful for his appointment to the Lang Chair. "Physician-scientists seek to translate their first-hand knowledge of disease biology into new therapeutic strategies to improve human health and health care," he says. "As steward of the Lang Chair, I will do my best to continue to deserve the recognition and the vote of confidence it provides to the benefit of our patients, our trainees, and our institutions."
A graduate of Washington University, Dr. Towler is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, past member of the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry and serves as an ad hoc referee for numerous other biomedical research publications. He is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He serves on the National Institutes of Health Skeletal Biology Development and Disease study section, and on the long range planning committee for Bone Biology and Bone Diseases Research for the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.
Prior to his appointment as chief of the Division of Bone and Mineral Diseases, he was senior director of Bone Biology and Osteoporosis Research at Merck Research Laboratories. Throughout his career, Dr. Towler has received several prestigious awards, including the Fuller Albright Award from the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research. He was a Charles E. Culpeper Medical Science Scholar from 1996-1999.
"My own research emphasizes the pathophysiology of cardiovascular calcification – e.g., 'hardening of the arteries'– relevant to the terrible vascular disease of diabetes and chronic kidney failure," says Dr. Towler. "Intriguingly, patients with the most severe osteoporosis also have significant cardiovascular calcification. This first suggested there might be a functional link between skeletal and vascular calcium metabolism. We've identified that cardiovascular calcification is in fact an actively regulated process and can be treated by certain 'bone' regulating hormones.
"With colleagues in cardiology, vascular surgery, endocrinology, and radiology, we are now extending this knowledge to develop new strategies for treating our patients with vascular disease and osteoporosis. This is possible only through synergistic research support provided by Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation and the National Institutes of Health."
The Ira M. Lang Chair was established in 1988 through a bequest from the estate of Virginia S. Lang. It is one of 18 endowed chairs at Barnes-Jewish Hospital that support clinical research and patient care.