Dr. Nathan S. Bryan is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Medicine within the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, part of the School of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.  He is also on faculty within the Department of Integrative Biology and Pharmacology and Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.  Dr. Bryan earned his undergraduate Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin and his doctoral degree from Louisiana State University School of Medicine in Shreveport where he was the recipient of the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research.  He pursued his post-doctoral training as a Kirschstein Fellow at Boston University School of Medicine in the Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute. 

Dr. Bryan's research is dedicated to providing a better understanding of the interactions of nitric oxide and related metabolites with their different biological targets at the molecular and cellular level and the significance of these reactions in health and disease. Attempts are made to identify what particular changes in NO-related signaling pathways and reaction products occur in many diseases with the aim of testing their amenability as biomarkers for diagnosis and/or treatment of specific disease.  Current research is directed to understand the interactions of dietary nitrite/nitrate (NOx) on the endogenous NO/cGMP pathway and how perturbations in each system affect cardiovascular health.  Dr. Bryan and colleagues recently discovered that nitrite is a biologically active molecule previously thought to be an inert breakdown product of NO production.  These findings have unveiled many beneficial effects of nitrite in the treatment and prevention of human disease.  These discoveries may provide the basis for new preventive or therapeutic strategies in diseases associated with NO insufficiency and new guidelines for optimal health.  Dr. Bryan has published a number of highly cited papers and authored or edited 4 books.