The event will take place August 3, 2012, in the Medical Sciences Building. Oral presentations will begin at 8:30 a.m. and poster presentations will begin at noon. Dr. Robertson's lecture, “The New Paradigm of Genome Research in Human Disease,” will take place at 11 a.m. in the Medical Sciences Building Auditorium.
Dr. Robertson also serves as director of the NIH Autonomic Diseases Clinical Research Consortium, and for the Clinical Research Center and Center for Space Physiology and Medicine at Vanderbilt. He has a B.A. in Slavic Languages, an M.D. in medicine, and he completed a fellowship in clinical pharmacology at Vanderbilt University.
Dr. Robertson is the 2007 recipient of the Earl Sutherland Prize for Achievement in Research awarded annually to a Vanderbilt faculty member whose achievements in research, scholarship, or creative expression have had significant critical reception and are recognized nationally or internationally.
Dr. Robertson’s research interests are in the autonomic control of human physiology and in clinical and translational strategies to evaluate such investigative questions. In 1978, he established the first Autonomic Dysfunction Center to discover new etiologies of dysautonomic disorders. He subsequently discovered previously unrecognized disorders like dopamine beta hydroxylase deficiency norepinephrine transporter deficiency, and baroreflex failure. He has trained over 30 fellows in the autonomic field. Dr. Robertson’s trainees occupy scientific and investigative leadership positions in the United States and abroad, including five department chairs and deans.
Currently, he serves as associate editor of the Journal of the Chinese Medical Association and editor for Spotlight on Rare Diseases. Dr. Robertson is an editorial board member of Rambam Maimondies Medical Journal and Clinical Autonomic Research. He has been a member of several editorial boards including American Board of Clinical Pharmacology, Drug Therapy (Editor), and Association of American Physicians.
Dr. Robertson’s third English and first Japanese edition of "Primer on the Autonomic Nervous System" has been the major selling text in autonomic disorders since 1996. His textbook "Clinical and Translational Science," embodying an approach to the new discipline of clinical and translational research, appeared in 2009.
For more information on the Medical Student Research Day, contact Natalie Kent at (251) 461-1548.
