Dr Donald DiPette

Distinguished Health Sciences Professor, University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Department of Medicine, Columbia, S.C., USA

Donald DiPette M.D., FACP, FAHA is currently the Health Sciences Distinguished Professor at the University of South Carolina and the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Columbia, South Carolina. He has previously held the positions of Special Assistant to the Provost for Health Affairs, Vice President for Medical Affairs and Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of South Carolina. Previously, he was Interim Senior Executive Dean and Chairman of Medicine and Professor of Medicine at the Texas A&M Health Sciences Center College of Medicine.

Dr DiPette earned his bachelor's degree from Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J. and his M.D. degree from Pennsylvania State University in Hershey, P.A. After completing his training in internal medicine and hypertension at Boston University School of Medicine, he joined the University of Pittsburgh and Allegheny General Hospital where he held joint appointments in the School of Medicine and the School of Public Health. He was the Associate Program Director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program and the Director of the Hypertension Research Program at Allegheny General Hospital during his tenure at Pittsburgh. From 1986 - 1999, Dr DiPette served in several leadership positions at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston including Director of the Division of General Internal Medicine, Director of the Hypertension Section, and Vice Chairman for both Educational Affairs and In-patient Affairs within the Department of Medicine. In 1999 he was named Chairman and Professor in the Department of Medicine in the College of Human Medicine at Michigan State University, where he remained until joining Texas A&M in 2002.

Dr DiPette is a member of several professional societies and organizations including the American Heart Association, the Council for High Blood Pressure Research of the American Heart Association, and the American Society of Hypertension. Dr DiPette is the immediate Past President of the Southern Medical Association. In addition, Dr DiPette is actively involved in the Global HEARTS program of the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, as well as the HEARTS in the Americas program of the Pan American Health Organization. He currently serves as the Envoy for Latin American and the Caribbean to the World Hypertension League.

He is board certified in internal medicine and clinical pharmacology and has a specialist certification in hypertension. His major areas of research, which have been funded by the American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health, include the pharmacologic treatment of hypertension and the role of novel neuropeptides in the pathophysiology of hypertension. He has published more than 140 manuscripts in leading peer-reviewed clinical and basic science journals.