Seminars

Renal Research Conference

Weekly meetings hosted by the Vanderbilt O'Brien Kidney Center at 8:30 a.m. CT on Fridays

The Vanderbilt O'Brien Kidney Center (VOKC) Renal Research Conference occurs Fridays at 8:30 a.m. CT from September through May each academic calendar year. The conference aims to:

Provide junior investigators from Vanderbilt and partner institutions with a supportive venue where they can hone their presentation skills and practice responding to questions
Foster collaborations between VOKC investigator with directors of core laboratories at VUMC and investigators from laboratories at Vanderbilt Univeristy by sharing research capabilities and interests
Provide senior investigators within VOKC with the opportunity to present early work for feedback and critical review from colleagues
Invite pioneering renal researchers from around the world to share latest findings with VOKC investigator

Past Presenters

2022

Date	Speaker	Title
Jan. 7, 2022	Colin Reily, PhD	Immunoglobulins and Pathobiology of IgA Nephropathy
Jan. 14, 2022	Susan B. Gurley, MD, PhD	ACE2 in 2022 – A Focus on the Kidney
Jan. 21, 2022	Adriana Hung, MD, MPH	Genetic Determinants of Diabetic Kidney Disease
Feb. 4, 2022	Reena Rao, PhD	New pathogenic roles of vasopressin type-2 receptors
Feb. 11, 2022	Gabriel Loeb, MD, PhD	Protective Effects of Renal G protein-coupled Estrogen Receptor in Hypertension
Feb. 18, 2022	Billy Hudson, PhD	Goodpasture’s Disease: A Window into the Architecture and Function of the Kidney Filter
Feb. 25, 2022	Arohan R. Subramanya, MD, FASN	Amplifying Potassium Sensing and Responsiveness in the Kidney via WNK Kinases
March 4, 2022	William Fissell, MD	Overcoming the Dedifferentiation of Cell Culture Stress in Renal Tubule Cells
March 18, 2022	Moshe Levy, MD	The Role of Nuclear Receptors in Regulation of Metabolism and Disease
March 25, 2022	Marcus Bitzer, MD	MicroRNAs: Disease modulators with complex functions
April 8, 2022	W. David Merryman, PhD	Targeting Cadherin-11 for Chronic Kidney Disease
April 22, 2022	Kerri Cavanaugh, MD, MHS	Testing innovations to improve communication healthcare visit information to patients & caregivers
April 29, 2022	Ronak Lakhia, MD	Genetic and Epigenetic Regulators of Polycystic Kidney Disease
May 6, 2022	Robert J. Coffey, Jr., MD	Recent Progress onExtracellular Vesicles and Nanoparticles: Tracing Footsteps of DPEP1
May 13, 2022	Shuvo Roy, PhD	Constructing an Implantable Bioartificial Kidney
May 20, 2022	Mary Choi, MD	Mitochondria and Necroptosis –New Insights into Human and Experimental Kidney Disease
May 27, 2022	Bethany Birkelo, DO	COVID-19-associated Acute Kidney Injury
May 27, 2022	Kuniko Hunter	TGFB and Metformin Mediate Substrate Metabolism in Vitro

2021

Date	Speaker	Title
Jan. 8, 2021	Jorge Gamboa, MD, PhD	Bioenergetic and Structural Impairment of Skeletal Muscle in Chronic Kidney Disease
Jan. 22, 2021	Carl Oberg, MD, PhD	Physiology of Solute and Water Transport Across Glomerular Capillary Walls
Jan. 29, 2021	Anna Greka, MD, PhD	Membrane proteins and disrupted mechanisms of cellular homeos
Feb. 5, 2021	Brian Rini, MD, FASCO	Updates on Biology and Clinical Approach to Metastatic Kidney Cancer
Feb. 12, 2021	Eman Gohar, PhD	Protective Effects of Renal G protein-coupled Estrogen Receptor in Hypertension
Feb. 19, 2021	John P Fisher, PhD	3D Printing for Engineering Complex Tissues
Feb. 26, 2021	Oliver Devuyst, MD	From Rare to Common: The Genetic Architecture of Kidney Disease
March 5, 2021	Marcus Moeller, MD	The glomerular filter as electrical power house
March 12, 2021	Benjamin "Beno" Freedman, PhD	Human Kidney Organoids for Therapy Development
March 19, 2021	Jan Kielstein, MD	Extracorporeal removal of pathogens - why and how?
March 26, 2021	Craig Brooks, PhD	IL-22 Promotes Nephrotoxin induced AKI through Activation of the DNA Damage Response
April 2, 2021	Jason Wertheim, MD PhD	Regenerative Technologies for (Re)Building Tissues: Scaffolds and Cellular Populations
April 16, 2021	Andrew Terker, MD, PhD	Potassium channels you’ve never heard of: in kidney health and disease
April 23, 2021	Javier Jaramillo Morales, MD and Melis Sahinoz, MD	Mitochondrial function in the skeletal muscle of patients with chronic kidney disease and heart failure
April 30, 2021	Matthew H. Wilson, MD, PhD	Adventures in Engineering Gene Therapy for Cystinuria
May 14, 2021	Fabian Bock, MD, PhD	Rac1 promotes renal epithelial collecting duct integrity
May 21, 2021	Selene Colon , PhD	The Complex Role of Peroxidasin in Injury
Sept. 10, 2021	Combined with KPT: Peter Nickerson, MD	HLA molecular mismatch: A Tool for Precision in Transplant Medicine
Sept. 17, 2021	Michelle Reyzer, PhD	Imaging Mass Spectrometry: Applications to Biology
Sept. 24, 2021	JP Cartailler, PhD, and Leesa Sampson, PhD	Bioinformatics and Informatics Services Offered by Creative Data Solutions, a Vanderbilt Shared Resource
Oct. 8, 2021	Navjot Pabla, PhD	Protein Kinase Inhibitors and Acute Kidney Injury
Oct. 15, 2021	David M Patrick, MD, PhD	Cardiovascular Disease and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: Mechanistic Insights
Oct. 22, 2021	Megan G. Behringer, PhD	Evolutionary Traps: How can experimental evolution inform medicine and biomedical research?
Oct. 29, 2021	Ali Gharavi, MD	Genomic Medicine in Nephrology
Nov. 12, 2021	Corina Borza, PhD	Discoidin Domain Receptor 1 Contributes to Kidney Inflammation and Fibrosis by Promoting the Phosphorylation of Breakpoint Cluster Region Protein and STAT3
Nov. 19, 2021	Matt Luther, MD	Aldosterone, Exosomes and Renal Sodium Channels
Dec. 3, 2021	Ken Lau, PhD	Constructing and Validating a Human Pre-Cancer Atlas
Dec. 10, 2021	JP Arroyo, MD, PhD	Vasopressin and the Local Response to Extracellular Fluid Tonicity Changes
Dec. 17, 2021	Janos Peti-Peterdi, MD, PhD	A New View of Macula Densa Cells in Renal

2020

Date	Speaker	Title
Jan. 10, 2020	Susan Ziolkowski, MD	Rethinking Sarcopenia and the Obesity Paradox in CKD
Jan. 17, 2020	Ming-zhi Zhang, MD	Myeloid Cyclooxygenase 2 in Renal Physiology and Pathophysiology
Jan. 31, 2020	Denise Marciano, MD, PhD	Mechanisms of tissue morphogenesis in the kidney
Feb. 7, 2020	Brad H. Rovin, MD, FACP, FASN	Kidney Biopsy-Based Management of Immunosuppression for Patients with Lupus Nephritis
Feb. 21, 2020	Leslie Gewin, MD	Renal tubular beta-catenin protects in AKI to CKD
Feb. 28, 2020	Brandon Kistler, PhD, RD	Nutrition during Hemodialysis: Current Evidence and Opportunitites for Growth
March 6, 2020	Lorraine Ware, MD	The Aster Clinical Trial: Are New Treatments for Sepsis-Induced AKI Blooming?
April 17, 2020	Kuniko Hunter, graduate student	AMPK – and non-canonical TGFb-signaling mediate in vitro differentiation and metabolic reprogramming of human renal tubule epithelial cells
May 1, 2020	Kensei Taguchi, MD, PhD	Cyclin G1-mediated dedifferentiation of kidney tubular cells modulates AKI to CKD transition
May 8, 2020	Kerri Cavanaugh, MD, MHS	Evaluating Communication as a Key Determinant in Hemodialysis Care
May 29, 2020	Edward Siew, MD, MSCI	Intermediate Clinical and Patient-Centered Outcomes After Acute Kidney Injury
Sept. 11, 2020	Raymond Harris, MD	Role of Macrophage IRF4 In Response to Ischemic Kidney Injury
Sept. 18, 2020	Elena Pokidysheva, PhD	A COL4A3 variant provides opportunity to uncover function and dysfunction of glomerular BM suprastructure in Alport disease
Oct. 2, 2020	Ryan Hsi, MD	Selective versus empiric strategies for reducing kidney stone recurrence
Oct. 16, 2020	Lauren Woodard, PhD	Genome Engineering of Stem Cells for Kidney Regneration
Oct. 30, 2020	Yu Pan (Penny)
Nov. 6, 2020	Roberto Vanacore, PhD	Insights into the Role of Post-Translational Modifications of Collagen in Tissue Functions and Disease
Nov. 13, 2020	John Stafford, MD, PhD	Sex Differences in Cardiometabolic Disease; Implications for CKD
Nov. 20, 2020	Antonis Hatzopoulos PhD, FAHA	Mechanisms of Tissue Repair and Regeneration
Dec. 4, 2020	Khaled Abdel-Kader, MD	Real-Time Population Health Management Using the EHR

2019

Date	Speaker	Title
Jan. 11, 2019	Matthias Kretzler, MD	Precision Medicine for FSGS: The Neptune Experience
Jan. 18, 2019	Vivek Kasinath, MD	Activation of Fibroblastic Reticular Cells in Kidney Lymph Node during Crescentic Glomerulonephritis
Jan. 25, 2019	Ebele Umeukeje, MD	Patient-Centered Approaches to Reducing Kidney Disease Disparities
Feb. 1, 2019	Neal Paragas, PhD	Cell-Specific Image-Guided Transcriptomics of Acute Kidney Injury
Feb. 15, 2019	Bennett Landman, PhD	Opportunities for Machine Learning with Radiology: Learning to Improve Patient Care with ImageVU's 100 Trillion Pixels
Feb. 22, 2019	Kelly Birdwell, MD, MSCI	APOL1 and Kidney Transplant Outcomes
March 1, 2019	Ashley Pitzer, PhD	Contribution of ASC-inflammasome to vascular injury and dysfunction: Role of RNA Receptor RIG-I
March 8, 2019	Craig Brook, PhD	Quantifying organellar dynamics in kidney tissue with structured illumination microscopy
March 15, 2019	Alfred Cheung, MD	AVF Maturation Failure
March 22, 2019	Annet Kirabo, DVM, MSc, PhD, FAHA	Salt-Sensitivity in Hypertension and Renal Inflammation: A Role of Oxidative Lipid Modifications
April 5, 2019	Adriana Hung, MD, MPH	Comparative Effectiveness of SGLT2 in Euglycemic DKD: Bone Health and Lower Limb Amputation; Genetics of DKD in the MVP
April 12, 2019	Paul Voziyan, PhD	Mass spectrometry reveals macromolecular damage in the kidney
April 19, 2019	Devika Nair, MD	Psychological and Spiritual Support for Vulnerable Patients in Person-Centered Kidney Disease Care
April 26, 2019	Maya Vinzing, PhD	Preclinical Safety Tesing in Cardiovascular Development at Bayer
May 3, 2019	Kirk Campbell, MD	Novel Mediators of Podocyte Injury in Glomerular Disease Progression
May 10, 2019	Kyle Brown, PhD	Structure-Function Studies of Integrin a1b1
May 17, 2019	Bo Faust, PhD	Profilin-mediated actin allocation regulates the growth of epithelial microvilli
May 24, 2019	Dirk Thomas, MD, PhD and Mario Berger, PhD	How to address the kidney in Early Drug Development; Biomarkers in the Kidney Arena, New Insights
Sept. 6, 2019	Takamune Takahashi, MD, PhD	Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase as a Therapeutic Target for Diabetic Nephropathy
Sept. 13, 2019	David P. Basile, PhD	The_17 Mediation of Repair and Disease Progression Following Kidney Injury: Two Sides of the Same (cyto) Coin
Sept. 20, 2019	Lauren Scarfe, PhD	Modeling AKI to CKD Transition in Mice
Sept. 27, 2019	Sergey Budko, PhD	Mysteries of mutations in Alport syndrome
Oct. 4, 2019	Volker Haase, MD	Mitochondrial dysfunction in renal pathogenesis
Oct. 11, 2019	Nick Ferrell, PhD	Tissue Mechanics in Diabetic Kidney Disease
Oct. 18, 2019	Venkata Sabbisetti, PhD	Novel therapeutic strategies for kidney diseases
Nov. 1, 2019	Cassianne Robinson-Cohen, PhD	Mendelian Randomization and CKD Mineral Bone Disorder
Nov. 15, 2019	Ambra Pozzi, PhD	Fused in Sarcoma: a DNA-RNA binding protein involved in fibrosis
Nov. 22, 2019	Subhashini Bolisetty, PhD	Different Faces of Ferritin in Acute Kidney Injury
Dec. 6, 2019	Nisha Bansal, MD	New Strategies for Blood Pressure Management in Hemodialysis Patients
Dec. 13, 2019	Shuto Ishibe, MD	Pathobiology and Insights into the treatment of nephrotic syndrome

2018

Date	Speaker	Title
Jan. 19, 2018	Ryan M. Allen, PhD	Lipoprotein-bound, microbial small RNAs in health and disease - A work in progress
Jan. 26, 2018	Daisuke Katagiri, MD, PhD, FASN	Nitric Oxide and Endothelial-Podocyte Crosstalk in Diabetic Nephropathy
Feb. 2, 2018	Anupam Agarwal, MD	Lymphangiogenesis in the pathogenesis of acute kidney injury
Feb. 9, 2018	Manuel Chiusa, PhD	Nuclear DDR1 Story!
Feb. 16, 2018	Richard Breyer, PhD	Asprosin: Does this hormone make me look fat?
Feb. 23, 2018	Laura Dember, MD	Pragmatic Trials in Dialysis: An Appealing Alterantive?
March 9, 2018	William Fissell, MD	It Takes a Village: Implantable Artifical Kidney
March 16, 2018	Matthew Wilson, MD, PhD	Adventures in Genome Engineering for Kidney Disease
April 6, 2018	Elizabeth Phillips, MD	Preventing Serious Immunologically Medicated Adverse Drug Reactions as a Model for Personalized Medicine
April 27, 2018	Amy Major, PhD	Preventing Serious Immunologically Medicated Adverse Drug Reactions as a Model for Personalized Medicine
May 4, 2018	Roberto Vanacore, PhD	MicroRNA-22 as a Potential Pathogenic Modifier of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and Associated Kidney Disease
May 11, 2018	Stefan Somlo, MD	Role of LOXL2-mediated collagen crosslinking in diabetic nephropathy
May 18, 2018	Patrick H. Nachman, MD, FASN	The Molecular Genetics of Polysystic Kidney and Liver Diseases
May 25, 2018	Marika Manolopoulou, MD	The Fast Pace of Change in Membranous Nephropathy
Sept. 7, 2018	Alp Ikizler, MD	TGF-beta Signaling in Proximal Tubules Affects Chronic Injury Response Through Cell Cycle
Sept. 14, 2018	Steven Coca, DO, MS	Macronutrient Utilization in Advanced Kidney Disease: Implications for Protein Energy Wasting Syndrome
Sept. 21, 2018	Jonathan Scott Maltzman, MD, PhD, FAST	Leveraging Biomarkers in Chronic Kidney Disease: Current and Future Applications
Sept. 28, 2018	Ming-Zhi Zhang, MD	Protective immune responses to CMV in solid organ transplantation
Oct. 5, 2018	Matthew Semler, MD, MSCI	Gender Differences in the Development of Glomerulopathy in Mice with an EGFR Agin0of-Function Mutation
Oct. 12, 2018	ASN Practice	Balanced Crystaloids versus Saline in Critically Ill Adults
Oct. 19, 2018	Motoko Yanagita, MD, PhD	The Mechanism of AKI to CKD
Nov. 2, 2018	Stellor Nlandu Khodo, PhD	Epithelial beta-Catenin Activation In Chronic Renal Injury
Nov. 9, 2018	Julie Wright Nunes, MD, MPH	Kidney Disease Prevention: When Research Meets Reality
Nov. 16, 2018	Ethan Lippmann, PhD	Modeling and Understanding Neurovascular Function and Disease Using Human iPSCs and Engineering Strategies
Nov. 30, 2018	Leonardo Riella, MD, PhD	Innovation in Transplantation: From Bench to Bedside
Dec. 7, 2018	Lauren Woodard, PhD	Kidney Stem Cells: From New to Old and Back Again
Dec. 14, 2018	Sandeep Mallipattu, MD	Krüppel-Like Factors: Three Fingers in Control of Kidney Disease

2017

Date	Speaker	Title
Jan. 11, 2017	Jim Shayman, MD	Lysosomal Biology in Rare and Common Diseases
Jan.18, 2017	Tess Dupre, PhD	Sphingolipids in cisplatin-induced acute kidney injury
Jan. 25, 2017	Jim Shayman, MD	Lysosomal Biology in Rare and Common Diseases
Feb. 1, 2017	Jens Mark Titze, MD	Salty food induces body water conservation and decreases fluid intake
Feb. 8, 2017	Jens Mark Titze, MD	High-salt intake reprioritizes osmolyte and energy metabolism for body fluid conservation
Feb. 15, 2017	Matthew Sparks, MD	Vascular Type 1 Angiotensin Receptors in blood Pressure Regulation
Feb. 22, 2017	John McLean, PhD	Big Data in Untargeted Metabolomics
March 1, 2017	Leslie Gewin, MD	TGF-beta and the Goldilocks Principle
March 15, 2017	Hanako Kobayashi, PhD	Renal Interstitial Cells: kidney development, Erythropoietin regulation, and fibrosis
March 29, 2017	Bruce Molitoris, MD	Gentamicin, a link to unlocking monogenic premature stop codon diseases
April 5, 2017	Craig Brooks, PhD	Cycling towards Fibrosis: Cell Cycle and Autophagy Proteins Drive Kidney Fibrosis
April 12, 2017	Aseel Alsouqi, PhD	Tissue Sodium Accumulation: Studies in Pre-Hypertensive and ESRD Patients
April 26, 2017	Ming-Zhi Zhang, MD	Macrophage CXO-2 in kidney injury
May 3, 2017	Kathleen Liu, MD	AKI Biomarkers: A Work in Progress
May 24, 2017	Edward Siew, MD, MSCI	Post-AKI Outcomes: Beyond the Fall
Sept. 8, 2017	Raymond Harris, MD	The Role of the Erbb Family in Acute Kidney Injury
Sept. 15, 2017	Volker Haase, MD	Oxygen metabolism in Renal Disease
Sept. 22, 2017	Eric Delpire, PhD	Novel mutations in human SLC12A transporters: Challenges of unique clinical cases
Sept. 29, 2017	Michael King, PhD	Collaboration Opportunities in Biomedical Engineering/King Lab Research on Platelets and Metastasis
Oct. 6, 2017	Philip Halloran, MD	Reschedule - Combining KPT with RRC
Oct. 13, 2017	Subramaniam Pennathur, MD	Myeloperoxidase, CKD and Atherosclerosis
Oct. 27, 2017	Rafael Kramann, MD	Perivascular Progenitors in Fibrotic and Cardiovascular Disease
Nov. 10, 2017	Jerrod S. Denton, PhD	Exploring the therapeutic potential of renal inward rectifier potassium channels
Nov. 17, 2017	Khaled Abdel-Kader, MD, MS	Risk Stratifying Older Adults with CKD
Dec. 1, 2017	Jay Bhave, MD, PhD	Role of Hypobromous Acid in Tissue Biology
Dec. 8, 2017	Matthew S. Shotwell, PhD	Using Leftover Blood from Clinical Labs to Study Individual and Population Pharmacokinetics
Dec. 15, 2017	Erin Plosa, MD	Epithelial B1 Integrin Regulates Lung Innate Immunity

2016

Date	Speaker	Title
Sept. 7, 2016	Billy Hudson, PhD	Goodpasture's disease: a window into the dawn of the extracellular matrix and multicellular tissues
Sept. 14, 2016	Nick Ferrell, PhD	Mechanotransduction in the Kidney
Sept. 21, 2016	Daniel Hu, MD	Muscle-Kidney Communication via the Myokine Irisin Suppresses Renal Metabolic Reprogramming and Fibrosis in Mice
Sept. 28, 2016	Matthew Tyska, PhD	Imaging with STORM and SIM: a revolution in resolution
Oct. 5, 2016	Cassieanne Robinson-Cohen, PhD	Race, Genetic Variation, and Mineral Metabolism Disturbances
Oct. 12, 2016	Craig Duvall, PhD	Optimization of Molecularly Targeted RNAi Therapies Against Undruggable Targets; A Missed Opportunity in Renal Diseases?
Oct. 19, 2016	Agnes Fogo, MD	Mechanisms of Progression - Beyond the Glomerulus
Oct. 26, 2016	Matt Luther, MD	Epoxyeicosatrienoic Acids and Insulin Sensitivity
Nov. 2, 2016	Joshua P. Fessel, MD, PhD	Mitochondrial Biology and Techniques for Study
Nov. 9, 2016	Rachel Forbes, MD; Jessica Overstreet, PhD; Sharidan Parr, MD; Jianchun Chen, MD; Huifang Cheng, MD	ASN Practice: Oral Abstract Presentations
Nov. 30, 2016	Alexander Staruschenko, PhD	Calcium Signaling as an Emerging Determinant of Podocyte Injury in Diabetic Nephropathy
Dec. 7, 2016	Jose Gomez, PhD	A New Role for Sox6 in Blood Pressure Regulation
Dec. 14, 2016	Mark de Caestecker, MBBS, PhD	The Case for Phenotypic vs. Target-based Drug-Discovery for Acute Kidney Injury