Ed Blaine

Title: Professor of medical pharmacology and physiology

Background: Originally from Farmington, Mo., Blaine earned his doctorate at MU in 1970 and then spent two years as a special fellow at the Howard Florey Institute of Experimental Physiology and Medicine in Melbourne, Australia. Blaine, while employed at Merck, directed programs to discover new blood pressure-lowering drugs, particularly diuretics and inhibitors of the renin-angiotensin system. He led the research teams that brought three other agents to the clinic and directed the multidisciplinary program that made major fundamental contributions to the discovery and description of a newly discovered hormone; this hormone is secreted by the heart and plays a significant role in blood pressure and salt and water regulation. He joined the MU faculty in 1992, has published more than 100 articles in the scientific literature and holds four patents.

Education: PhD, physiology, University of Missouri-Columbia, 1970

Speaking Topic: Cardiovascular issues, especially heart and blood pressure regulation