Adriana Hung, MD, MPH, is a nephrologist and epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is also the dialysis medical director, both for the outpatient and the inpatient programs, at the Nashville VA.
Dr. Hung obtained her medical degree from the Universidad Central of Venezuela, completed her residency at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, her nephrology fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco and her master’s in public health at Vanderbilt. Dr. Hung has received several grants/awards from the National Kidney Foundation, National Institute of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Dr. Hung’s research centers on examining the role of genetic and environmental factors that contribute to chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression and outcomes in CKD. Specifically, she has studied the role of inflammation and insulin resistance as important pathways for these outcomes and has worked in developing methods to better classify insulin resistance in patients with kidney disease and testing interventions that target these derangements and can lead to better outcomes. She is also interested in studying the genetic differences that explain health disparities in kidney outcomes, utilizing genome wide association analysis of polygenic traits, including CKD and its risk factors, particularly hypertension and diabetes.
Dr. Hung has extensive experience in pharmacoepidemiology and characterizing drug exposures using large databases from VA and CMS and has published work comparing the effectiveness of established therapies toward diabetes management to prevent incident and progressive CKD and improve cardiovascular outcomes. Dr. Hung currently serves as a co-chair for the Million Veteran Program Publication & Presentation Committee and as a co-chair for the Phenomics working group. Her current grant focuses on the genetics of kidney disease and hypertension in MVP. She also serves as a standing member of the health services research scientific review committee, informatic panel (2015-2019 ad hoc 2019-2023 standing member).
Dr. Hung is a section editor in the field of dialysis, nutrition and metabolism for the Journal of Clinical Nephrology, and is also a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Renal Nutrition and Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. She is a research director for Bench to Bedside research at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Previously she was the Associate Director for the Summer Research Training Program in Kidney Disease (SRTP-KD), which is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Hung has taught evidence-based medicine, epidemiology, and genetic epidemiology to medical and graduate students at Vanderbilt.