Dr. John Osborn Joins the Department of Surgery

The department of surgery is pleased to welcome John Osborn, PhD, as a faculty member to lead our efforts in peripheral autonomic neuromodulation. Imbalance of autonomic tone is linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease and hypertension.

Dr. Osborn has studied the relationship between sympathetic nervous system activity and hypertension throughout his career. His earlier studies focused on central nervous system pathways and hypertension. His research team is currently focused on the role of renal afferent nerves in the long-term modulation of sympathetic nervous system activity under normal and pathological states. Dr. Osborn comes to the department of surgery from the department of integrative biology and physiology at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Osborn received his PhD in physiology from the Medical College of Wisconsin, where he studied the neural-cardiovascular actions of vasopressin under the mentorship of Dr. Allen Cowley, Jr. As a Biomedical Engineering doctoral fellow, at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, he studied spinal level control of the sympathetic nervous system in the laboratory of Dr. Lawrence Schramm.

This recruitment is timely considering the medical school's focus on neuroscience as well as a commitment by the NIH and other funding agencies to explore peripheral autonomic neuromodulation as a potential therapy for chronic metabolic illness. We are excited to welcome Dr. Osborn and to support his efforts to build a robust team focused on creating innovative therapies for metabolic disease.