Ion Channels and Calcium Signaling in the Microcirculation

Dr. William F. Jackson is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology at Michigan State University. Dr. Jackson received his BS degree in Zoology, MS and Ph.D. degrees in Physiology and a Master of Applied Mathematics from Michigan State University. Dr. Jackson’s Postdoctoral training in microcirculatory physiology was performed at the University of Virginia under the tutelage of Dr. Brian R. Duling. He was on the faculty of the Medical College of Georgia, where he received the Distinguished Young Faculty award in 1987, and Western Michigan University, where he received the Distinguished Faculty Scholars Award in 1998, prior to being recruited back to MSU in 2005 to found an on-line MS program in Integrative Pharmacology and continue his long-standing National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded research program studying ion channels and calcium signaling in the regulation of arteriolar tone in the microcirculation. Dr. Jackson has been continuously funded by the NIH since 1984, is a Past-President of the Microcirculatory Society, Inc., and has served as Associate Editor, Editor-in-Chief and Consulting Editor for the journal, Microcirculation. He is a Fellow of the Cardiovascular Section of the American Physiological Society (APS), past-Chair of the APS Cardiovascular Section, and a Fellow of the American Heart Association. His research focuses on identifying the ion channels expressed by both arteriolar smooth muscle and endothelial cells, how these ion channels function in the regulation of myogenic tone and oxygen signaling in the microcirculation, and how aging and disease states such as hypertension and obesity impact the expression and function of ion channels in the microcirculation.