George L. Bakris, MD

George L. Bakris, MD, is the Vice Chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Rush University Medical Center. He also directs the Section of Clinical Research.

Dr. Bakris serves as the Principal Investigator on the African-American Study of Kidney Disease (AASK) cohort study, a five-year, multicenter trial follow-up of the main AASK trial involving more than 800 non-diabetic African American hypertensive patients with renal disease. He is also co-principal investigator of a K30 Clinical Research Training grant.

Dr. Bakris is one of the principal investigators for the randomized, double-blind, multicenter RENAAL Trial to investigate the effects of an angiotensin II receptor antagonist on the progression of diabetic kidney disease. He is involved in five other studies of diabetic renal disease, all of which investigate the effects of blood pressure reduction and antihypertensive drugs on glomerular membrane permeability and change in proteinuria.