Biography
After receiving my M.D, from the University of Chicago, I completed residency in pediatrics and fellowship in renal physiology at the University of North Carolina, and clinical fellowship in pediatric nephrology at the University of Colorado. I joined the faculty of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Virginia in 1978 and retired as Professor Emeritus in 2014. During that time, I practiced pediatric nephrology, and maintained a laboratory for the study of pathogenesis of kidney disease in children. I became frustrated with the slow development of new therapies for chronic kidney disease: dialysis and transplantation do not provide optimal quality of life, particularly when developing in childhood. The paradigm of seeking proximate causes of progressive kidney disease has not served us well. I have a longstanding interest in the history of biology and medicine, and Darwin’s great legacy. I therefore began incorporating evolutionary principles to explain adaptation of the kidney to injury in my research, and became aware of the growing literature of evolutionary medicine. I am an enthusiastic member of ISEMPH, and I am now contributing papers to clinical and basic science journals to increase awareness of an evolutionary approach to nephrology.*