Jackson Wright, MD, PhD

JACKSON T. WRIGHT, JR., MD, PHD, FACP, FASH, FAHA is Professor of Medicine and Program Director of the William T Dahms MD Clinical Research Unit at University Hospitals Case Medical Center. He is also Director of the Clinical Hypertension Program in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension. He received both his MD and Ph.D. (Pharmacology) from the University of Pittsburgh and completed his Internal Medicine residency at the University of Michigan. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and received subspecialty board certification in Clinical Pharmacology. An experienced clinical investigator, Dr. Wright’s primary research interest is in the clinical pharmacology of antihypertensive and cholesterol lowering agents, especially in minority populations. He has published extensively in this area (over 300 articles, book chapters and abstracts) and served on many national and international advisory panels.

Dr. Wright has had a major or leadership role in nearly all of the major clinical outcome trials conducted in black populations over the past two decades. His leadership and participation in National Institutes of Health-funded clinical trials with large minority representation has resulted in significant advancement of the knowledge base for treatment of hypertension and chronic kidney disease. He served as Vice Chair of the Steering Committee for the NIH-sponsored African American Study of Kidney Disease in Hypertensives Trial (AASK) and first authored its primary results paper. In addition, he is Co-I (initially PI) of one of seven clinical center networks to participate in the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases-sponsored Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) Study.

Dr. Wright also served as Chair of the Executive Committee and Vice Chair of the Steering Committee for the largest study of hypertension treatment ever completed, the Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering to Prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT), where he was the lead author on the primary results paper and the papers presenting the results by race. The study defined optimal hypertensive therapeutic regimens to reduce cardiovascular events, pointing out differences in magnitude of response by ethnicity. It also demonstrated the impact of quality clinical trial data derived from diverse cohorts in optimizing treatment in these same populations. He is currently PI of one of the five clinical center networks in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute-sponsored Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT).

He was selected for service on the three latest U.S. national hypertension guideline panels. He co-chaired the treatment section for the previous Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC 7), served on the panel that generated the 2014 U.S. hypertension guideline report, and currently serves on the hypertension guideline panel convened by the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology.