Academic Bio

Dr. Bress is currently an Associate Professor of Population Health Sciences with Tenure in the Division of Health System Innovation and Research and an Investigator at the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System.

Dr. Bress received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Maryland, and his Masters of Science in Clinical and Translational Science from the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health with a focus on epidemiology. He completed his residency in pharmacy practice at Yale-New Haven Hospital and Cardiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He subsequently completed his post-doctoral research fellowship in cardiovascular pharmacogenomics at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Dr. Bress is a formally-trained cardiovascular clinical pharmacist and population scientist. His research is focused on the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease, optimizing medication use, and reducing health disparities. He is particularly interested in studying antihypertensive medication use, responses, and outcomes to help patients and providers, as well as health systems, payers, governments, and population health managers make better decisions about how to treat and control high blood pressure. He is also interested in genetic ancestry and racial/ethnic differences in antihypertensive medication responses.

Dr. Bress's research is currently NIH-funded as Principal Investigator by a K01 (K01HL133468) and R01 (R01HL139837) from the NHLBI. He is also PI of an NHLBI R13 Conference grant (R13HL144012) to support the University of Utah Translational Hypertension Symposium. Dr. Bress's research has been published as first author in the New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, and Circulation and has been covered in TIME Magazine, The New York Times, and CBS radio.

Dr. Bress has established collaborations with a multi-disciplinary team of investigators in hypertension, cardiology, health services research, epidemiology, and pharmacogenetics at the University of Utah and around the country. He is an active member of the hypertension working groups for two ongoing NIH-funded cohort studies including the Jackson Heart Study (JHS), the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study, and the Women's Health Initiative (WHI). He is also an active member of the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT) Research Group.

Dr. Bress has received peer-reviewed extramural research support as Principal Investigator (PI) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) specifically from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). He is currently PI of a five-year K01 award which is determining the association between genetic ancestry, including individual genetic variants, with blood pressure control, antihypertensive medication responses, and cardiovascular disease outcomes in African Americans. This project will identify genetic factors that may account for observed racial differences in antihypertensive medication response, potentially identify new approaches for optimizing antihypertensive medication prescribing and thereby improve blood pressure control rates in African Americans. His mentors and scientific advisors for this award are Lynn Jorde (human genetics), Rachel Hess (health services research), Rick Kittles (genetic ancestry and health disparities), Donna Arnett (pharmacogenetics), Paul Muntner (hypertension epidemiology), and Tom Greene (biostatistics).

He also received grant support from the biomedical industry as PI for investigator-initiated research projects focused on cardiovascular pharmacoepidemiology.

Topic:  Hypertension and its Consequences.

Dr. Bress knows to expect questions on Covid-19 considering his background in epidemiology and pharmacogenetics..  Ie.  Dr. Bress... talk vaccines.

Research Statement

I am a cardiovascular clinical pharmacist with training in epidemiology and pharmacogenetics. We focus on disparities in prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease with a focus on hypertension and antihypertensive medication use. Using pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacogenetics, we try to better understand causes of racial differences in medication responses and outcomes. We apply these findings to understand the population-level impact, generalizability, and cost-effectiveness in diverse groups.