Faculty Accomplishments

Finding the links

Dr. James Sowers worked on both coasts before returning to his alma mater to be the Thomas W. and Joan F. Burns Missouri Chair in Diabetology. The MU School of Medicine graduate studies the link between diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The National Institutes of Health and a host of national medical associations help support his research on diabetes and other endocrine disorders.

Fifty million people have high blood pressure and are prone to developing Type 2 diabetes. James Sowers, MD ’71, directs the MU Diabetes and Cardiovascular Center and is associate dean for clinical research. His work addresses the link between high blood pressure and diabetes to better understand how to prevent and cure the diseases, which are growing problems in the United States.

His clinical research on diabetes and other endocrine disorders has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the American Diabetes Association, among others. Sowers is co-editor of several medical texts, including Contemporary Endocrinology: Endocrinology of the Vasculature; Recent Advances in Geriatrics; and Hypertension Primer: The Essentials of High Blood Pressure, now in its third edition.

Before joining the faculty of the MU School of Medicine, he held positions in New York, Detroit and Los Angeles.

Sowers is the first Thomas W. and Joan F. Burns Missouri Chair in Diabetology. “I always wanted to return and give something back to this institution,” Sowers says. “There’s a mindset here now to continue to expand into more diverse research, which makes it attractive to be here, particularly from the perspective of a clinical investigator like me.”