Harm J. Knot, Ph.D., was recently appointed to positions in two internationally known research societies

A fellow of the American Heart Association and an assistant professor in the University of Florida College of Medicine’s cardiovascular division, Harm J. Knot, Ph.D., was recently appointed to positions in two internationally known research societies.

Knot, who came to UF in 1999 and also works in UF’s department of pharmacology and therapeutics, began his three-year term on the executive committee of the Division for Systems and Integrative Pharmacology of the American Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics January 1, 2004. The society’s executive committee works to bring together scientists who study physiological systems and who share a common perspective of pharmacology as an integrated discipline within the organism.

Knot began a term as a member of a new study group within the American Heart Association called the Vascular Biology and Blood Pressure Regulation peer review committee, one of a number that review national grants. The group formed in fall 2003 to emphasize the growing importance of vascular biology as an emerging discipline in cardiovascular research, including research on vascular aspects of hypertension.

Additionally, Knot is the chief scientific officer of DMT worldwide and vice president of DMT-USA, which Knot founded in Atlanta in April 2003. DMT is a biotech and bioengineering company that manufactures and sells vascular and muscle research equipment. DMT has incorporated ideas Knot developed in their newest products ¾ machines that allow the simultaneous use of electrophysiology, imaging and measurements of intact physiological function. The latest development is the design and manufacture of a specialized “organ culture” system to be used on small intact pressurized blood vessels for physiological genomic research. These vessels are the site of the vascular complications in major diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and even age-related dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.