The critical role of the kidney in maintaining homeostatic balance, and the disorders of homeostasis that accompany diseases of the kidney and the associated loss of kidney function, underscore the importance of this organ in human health. Led by a team of talented investigators with diverse research interests who have strong, collaborative research programs at the University of Pittsburgh and at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the Pittsburgh Center for Kidney Research is designed to realize our goal of providing kidney investigators with the knowledge and cutting-edge tools necessary to study normal and abnormal kidney function. Additionally, the center will provide a summer student enrichment program and a lay education program to educate patients with kidney disease and their families about the many roles of the kidney, changes that occur as kidney function declines and advances in kidney research.
The Administrative Core, comprised of Thomas Kleyman, MD (center director); Ora Weisz, PhD (center associate director); Ossama Kashlan, PhD; and Manisha Jhamb, MD, MPH, will manage the center and facilitate collaborations with other centers to enhance national outreach and ensure broad and robust utilization of the Core facilities by investigators across the country. They will also work with the Core Directors to incorporate new technologies/methodologies into our Center Cores and to attract early-stage and established investigators new to kidney research, as well as coordinate and administer lay education and summer student enrichment programs.
The Resource Development Core–KIDNIT (Kidney Imaging: Developing Novel and Innovative Tools)–will be co-directed by Gerard Apodaca, PhD, and Simon Watkins, PhD (Cell Biology). Drs. Apodaca and Watkins, as well as Core Co-Investigators Sheldon Bastacky, MD (Pathology); Claudette St. Croix, PhD (Cell Biology); Donna Stolz, PhD (Cell Biology); and Alan Watson, PhD (Cell Biology) will collaborate with kidney investigators and the Center’s Physiology and Model Systems Core, leveraging the resources available through the Center for Biological Imaging. KIDNIT will build and adapt cutting-edge light, super-resolution, and electron microscopic imaging modalities and technologies to address open questions related to kidney function and dysfunction.
Co-directed by Marcelo Carattino, PhD, and Lisa Satlin, MD (Icahn-Mt Sinai), the center’s Physiology Core will provide a series of graded technologies and expertise to investigators who wish to address fundamental questions about transport processes that occur in the tubular structures of the nephron and other relevant systems. The Core, through its three subcores—the Single Tubule and Microperfusion Subcore, the Electrophysiology Subcore, and the Live-Cell Imaging Subcore—offers expertise and state-of-the-art technologies for studying the function and regulation of transport and other membrane resident proteins with progressive degrees of complexity from single molecules to model systems to native epithelia. The Core’s investigators, which also include Shaohu Sheng, MD; Thomas Kleyman, MD; and Nicolas Montalbetti, PhD, will apply a multipronged approach and collaborate with the O’Brien Consortium to share specialized resources and technologies throughout the kidney research community, to lower the barrier to entry for early-stage investigators and researchers new to the kidney field, and to advance kidney research and discovery nationwide.
Lastly, the Model Systems Core, co-directed by Arohan Subramanya, MD; Roderick Tan, MD, PhD; Jeff Brodsky, PhD (Biological Sciences); and Neil Hukriede, PhD (Developmental Biology), provides a diverse array of innovative model systems that will allow kidney researchers to explore renal development, function, and systemic physiology in normal and disease states. Extending from simple unicellular organisms to complex whole animal models, the Model Syystems Core is divided into three subcores: the Yeast Models Subcore (J. Brodsky, director), the Epithelial Models Subcore (Weisz and Hukriede, directors), and the Animal Models Subcore (Tan and Subramanya, directors). By offering impactful state-of-the-art and readily accessible services across diverse model systems, the Core and its investigators, including Catherine Baty, DVM, PhD; Ed Jackson, PhD (Pharmacology and Cell Biology); Kang Kim, PhD; and Sruti Shiva, PhD, will provide a unique national resource for the kidney research community that will propel team-based investigation and catalyze discovery.