generated via non-ACE-dependent pathways. Preliminary studies suggest this combination of pharmacologic agents may be advantageous in the treatment of essential hypertension, chronic heart failure, and nephropathy. However, the more recent ONTARGET study showed no benefit of combining the agents and more adverse events. While statistically significant results have been obtained for its role in treating hypertension, clinical significance may be lacking. There are warnings about the combination of ACE inhibitors with ARBs. Patients with heart failure may benefit from the combination in terms of reducing morbidity and ventricular remodeling. The most compelling evidence for the treatment of nephropathy has been found: This combination therapy partially reversed the proteinuria and also exhibited a renoprotective effect in patients with diabetic nephropathy, and pediatric IgA nephropathy. History Leonard T. Skeggs and his colleagues (including Norman Shumway) discovered ACE in plasma in 1956. It was also noted that those who worked in banana plantations in South-western Brazil collapsed after being bitten by a pit viper, leading to a search for a blood pressure lowering component in its venom. Brazilian scientist Sérgio Henrique Ferreira reported a bradykinin-potentiating factor (BPF) present in the venom of Bothrops jararaca, a South American pit viper, in 1965. Ferreira then went to John Vane's laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow with his already-isolated BPF. The conversion of the inactive angiotensin I to the potent angiotensin II was thought to take place in the plasma. However, in 1967, Kevin K. F. Ng and John R. Vane showed plasma ACE is too slow to account for the conversion of angiotensin I to angiotensin II in vivo. Subsequent investigation showed rapid conversion occurs during its passage through the pulmonary circulation. Bradykinin is rapidly inactivated in the circulating blood, and it disappears completely in a single pass through the pulmonary circulation. Angiotensin I also disappears in the pulmonary circulation because of its conversion to angiotensin II. Furthermore, angiotensin II passes through the lungs without any loss. The inactivation of bradykinin and the conversion of angiotensin I to angiotensin II in the lungs was thought to be caused by the same enzyme. In 1970, Ng and Vane, using BPF provided by Ferreira, showed the conversion is inhibited during its passage through the pulmonary circulation. BPFs are members of a family of peptides whose potentiating action is linked to inhibition of bradykinin by ACE. Molecular analysis of BPF yielded a nonapeptide BPF teprotide (SQ 20,881), which showed