Our Research: Overview

The Renal (Kidney) Medicine Division continues to provide international leadership in a number of areas of research. Our grant protfolio has continued to grow significantly over the last six years with commensurate growth in research support from a number of external sources.

Our program in acute kidney injury, polycystic kidney disease, transplantation biology and therapeutics, immunology renal genetics, transport biology, lupus nephritis, immunogenetics, molecular biology of CTP binding proteins, molecular autoimmunity, cell biology of cyst formation, epithelial cell cilial function and dysfunction, and inflammation have been expanded more recently with new programs in stem cell biology, reprogramming and organogenesis. We also have established active research programs in the cellular biology of chronic kidney disease and fibrosis, including, but not limited to, evaluating the role of the growth factor TGFb1 and the role of the cell cycle.

Programs in bioinformatics and biomedical engineering complement the above programs and facilitate the application of newer technologies to the understanding and treatment of diseases of the kidney.

Our transplantation research programs are multifaceted and involve active collaborations with the Surgery Department and the Immunology Graduate Program at Harvard.

We also have a number of clinical investigators who are pursuing various clinical projects including patient-oriented research in biomarkers and a variety of projects in clinical epidemiology aimed at understanding a developing strategies for evaluation of therapies for various kidney diseases. Many of these studies involve active collaborations with investigators at Harvard School of Public Health and we make use of large databases including the Nurse Health Study.

Basic Research

Clinical Research

Transplantation Research Center (TRC)