Joachim Ix, MD, MAS, is a nephrologist and clinical investigator at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Ix is currently Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Nephrology-Hypertension in the Department of Medicine and holds a joint appointment with the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System in La Jolla, California. Dr. Joachim Ix's primary research interest is to delineate how metabolic complications of chronic kidney disease contribute to cardiovascular disease. His research focuses on aberrant regulation of calcium, phosphate, and associated regulatory hormones in the setting of chronic kidney disease. He has evaluated their relationships with vascular calcium deposition, arterial stiffness, cardiac structural changes, and cardiovascular disease events. He is also interested in the relationship of aberrant mineral metabolism with bone disease and with the rate of progression of chronic kidney disease and has used large scale datasets to understand these relationships in different observational settings. Dr. Ix is particularly interested in identifying novel therapies to intervene on altered mineral metabolism in chronic kidney disease patients. He has tested novel therapies using small scale, cross-over studies that involve intensive monitoring in general clinical research study (GCRC) settings. More recently, he is leading larger scale multi-center randomized placebo controlled studies testing novel therapies in chronic kidney disease patients.