Lawrence Agodoa, M.D.

As director of the Office of Minority Health Research Coordination (OMHRC), I led the development of the Institute’s Strategic Plan on Minority Health Disparities and monitoring its implementation. The OMHRC addresses diseases and disorders that disproportionately impact the health of racial and ethnic minority populations and fosters the recruitment and training of minority biomedical investigators, who are currently in short supply. Some of the new initiatives under NIDDK’s Strategic Plan on Minority Health Disparities include the, the National High School Student Summer Research Program, the Network of Minority Health Research Investigators, the Short-term Research Experience Program to Unlock Potential, NIDDK Partnerships with Professional Societies to Enhance Scientific Workforce Diversity and Promote Scientific Leadership, and Small Grants for New Investigators to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research.

While I was in the Division of Kidney, Urologic, and Hematologic Diseases, I served as the program scientist and coordinator of the African American Study of Kidney Disease and Hypertension Cohort, a clinical trial of more than 1,000 African Americans with kidney disease and high blood pressure. The study identified, for the first time, a specific class of drugs (ACE inhibitor) that slows kidney disease caused by high blood pressure.

My duties also include oversight of the Minority Organ Tissue Donation Program. This program, which began as a collaboration between the NIDDK and the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, aims to increase organ donation among members of racial and ethnic minority communities. With more organs and tissues from minority groups in the donor pool, the survival rates and quality of life of their members are expected to improve.