American Journal of Hypertension 27(8) August 2014 1019

John Laragh is an outstanding clinician-scientist who dis-covered that renin, a mostly forgotten kidney hormone, causes essential hypertension1,2 and its complications.3 This discovery led to two new classes of drugs, angiotensin-con-verting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor block-ers, which revolutionized the treatment of hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and kidney disease and improved innumerable lives. CAREER MILESTONES John Laragh’s long career in clinical research began in the 1950s as a resident in medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons where Robert Loeb was chief of medicine. Loeb loved the practice of medicine, the search for evidence, the identification of the disease, the exploration of the physiologic background, and the selection of the most specific treatment. Loeb taught John to investi-gate fundamental questions in medicine, to find answers by listening to his patients, and to use the most precise labora-tory methods in his search. He sparked John’s curiosity about the mechanisms that control sodium and potassium metabo-lism. From that base, John progressed to a lifetime of clinical research and discovery, described in a series of reports in th