The 2nd Acute Kidney Injury Conference: From Bench to Bedside

Mark De Caestecker is a physician-scientist and Professor in the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. His research focuses on the development and testing of novel therapeutics to enhance the regenerative capacity of kidneys after injury (using a Zebrafish screen and mouse models of injury), as well as the analysis of retinoic acid signaling and macrophage function after AKI. He and his research team have been continuously funded since 2002 and have three federally funded research programs: To study inflammation in acute kidney injury (AKI); To understand new therapeutic approaches to prevent chronic kidney disease progression after AKI; To develop an imaging platform to generate 3D molecular atlases of the human kidney (part of the HuBMAP consortium). 

Dr. De Caestecker earned his MB, BS from Middlesex Hospital, London, and his medical diploma in Internal Medicine from the Royal College of Physicians of the United Kingdom (MRCP(UK)). He received his PhD from Manchester University, followed by his postdoctoral training under the supervision of Anita Roberts in the Laboratory of Cell Regulation and Carcinogenesis at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

At Vanderbilt University, Dr. De Caestecker is also the Director of the Vanderbilt Program in Molecular Medicine, a clinical enrichment program for basic science PhD students. He is Director of the Education and Outreach Program for the Vanderbilt Center for Kidney Disease, Director of the Vanderbilt Mouse Kidney Injury Workshop, and past Director of the Summer Research Training Program in Kidney Disease. He is Vice Chair for Faculty Development in the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and Director of the Neilson Society, the department’s career development program for all junior faculty on the tenure track. 

Dr. De Caestecker developed the concept and implemented the first FASEB Acute Kidney Injury bench to bedside conference in 2019. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Nephrology, a member of the American Physiological Society, and serves on the Editorial Board of American Journal of Physiology.

Dr. Neesh Pannu is a nephrologist and Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Alberta. She received her medical training at the University of Alberta and Stanford University and completed her Master of Science degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Harvard University. Her research interests are primarily in the diagnosis, management, and outcomes of acute kidney injury. 

Dr. Pannu is a member of the Alberta Kidney Disease Network (AKDN) and the Interdisciplinary Chronic Disease Collaboration (ICDC). She holds positions as the Co-Scientific Director of the Kidney Health of the Medicine Strategic Clinical Network and Associate Dean of Clinical Research Platforms at the University of Alberta.
 

Stuart Leonard Goldstein is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine and the Director of the Center for Acute Care Nephrology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. His main research foci include AKI epidemiology and outcomes, acute renal replacement therapy provision, and the investigation of novel urinary AKI biomarkers in the pediatric population. 

Dr. Goldstein completed his MD from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons followed by a Pediatric Nephrology Fellowship at Boston Children's Hospital. His value for interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaboration can be evidenced by the successful Prospective Pediatric Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy (ppCRRT) Registry, which he established and directed, and his many collaborations with critical care physicians, cardiologists, and emergency medicine physicians to study AKI in their populations. 

In 2012, Goldstein established the ppAKI-RG (Prospective Pediatric AKI Research Group), an international research consortium with a mission to advance the translational science for children with AKI. The ppAKI-RG published an unprecedented prospective observational study, Assessment of Worldwide AKI, Renal Angina and Epidemiology in critically ill children (AWARE – NCT01987921). AWARE enrolled 5,927 patients from 32 centers worldwide, making it the largest pediatric critical care nephrology study executed to date. 

Dr. Goldstein is a Member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Society of Nephrology, International Pediatric Nephrology Association, and American Society of Pediatric Nephrology.
 

Kathleen Liu is a Professor of Medicine and Anesthesia in the Divisions of Nephrology and Critical Care Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research focuses on acute kidney injury, chronic kidney disease, and the acute respiratory distress syndrome. Dr. Liu has participated in numerous clinical trials focused on the acute respiratory distress syndrome and acute kidney injury.  

Dr. Raymond Harris is the Ann Roscoe Robinson Professor of Medicine and Associate Chief of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Kidney Disease (VCKD). He has a longstanding interest in understanding mechanisms and developing potential therapeutic interventions for acute and chronic renal injury. 

One area of Dr. Harris’ research has focused on the role of growth factors, especially the EGF family of growth factors, in mediating the recovery from acute kidney injury and as potential mediators of progressive fibrosis in CKD. His research group investigates the role of the innate immune system in AKI and in subsequent development of CKD. 

In addition to research funded by the NIH and Veterans Administration, Dr. Harris is spearheading the Vanderbilt-Bayer Scientific Alliance, which has a goal of identifying and developing novel therapies for the treatment of kidney diseases. He is also Co-chair of the Kidney Health Initiative, a public/private consortium sponsored by the FDA and the American Society of Nephrology, with over 100 members from industry, patient groups, physician groups, and academia.

Kelly Anne Hyndman is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Medicine, Division of Nephrology, Cardio-Renal Physiology and Medicine. Her research has focused on the evolution of gene families necessary for maintaining fluid-electrolyte balance (e.g., the autocrine/paracrine molecule endothelin), to determining cellular mechanisms necessary to maintain fluid-electrolyte homeostasis. 

The overarching theme of her research program is determining the mechanisms of acetyltransferase, deacetylase, and lysine acetylation in both physiological and pathological states. Her lab currently has two focused areas of research: 1) Understanding the physiology and regulatory mechanisms of lysine acetylation in the kidney, and how enzymes in these pathways are critical to maintain fluid-electrolyte balance. 2) Understanding the pathophysiology of epigenetic regulating pathways in acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease progression. 

Hyndman earned her undergraduate degree in Marine and Freshwater Biology from the University of Guelph. She completed her PhD in Zoology at the University Florida, followed by a postdoc at the Vascular Biology Center and Section of Experimental Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia.

Hyndman is a member of the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Salisbury Cove, Maine, where she is an Instructor for the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Comparative Physiology Course. She is an appointed Special Government Employee to the Nephrology Subcommittee Study Section of the Joint Biomedical Laboratory Research and Development and Clinical Science Research and Development Services Scientific Merit Review Board for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. 

Hyndman is an Editorial Fellow with the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, and is an Editorial Board Member for Hypertension, the American Journal of Physiology–Renal Physiology, and the American Journal of Physiology–Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. 

She is the recipient of the New Investigator Award, Renal Section (2020) and the Renal Research Recognition Award (2017) from the American Physiology Society. At the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Hyndman is a Pittman Scholar in the School of Medicine (2018 – 2022) and was named the 2020 Unsung Hero in Nephrology.
 

Edward Siew is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of Clinical Research for the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. His research program has focused on the clinical and translational study of acute kidney injury (AKI) and has been supported by federal funding through the National Institutes of Health, Veterans Affairs, and Department of Defense.  Notable areas of investigation have included novel approaches to validating biological markers for the diagnosis and prognosis of AKI, new methods for phenotyping of AKI using the electronic health record, and studies of the long-term outcomes experienced by patients who survive an episode of AKI.  

Dr. Siew has participated in longitudinal studies of patients with AKI including the Assessment and Serial evaluation of the Subsequent Sequalae of AKI (ASSESS-AKI) and in clinical trials, such as The Isotonic Solutions and Major Adverse Renal Events (SMART) and the Saline Against Lactated Ringer’s or Plasma-Lyte in the Emergency Department (SALT-ED) studies. He is currently a Principal Investigator for the Caring for Patients After AKI (COPE-AKI) trial.  

Dr. Siew serves as an Associate Editor for the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. He previously served on the Editorial Board for Kidney International and as an expert on advisory panels including overseeing the development of a National Veterans Affairs Renal Registry. He is a Principal Investigator in the Million Veteran Program, a national research endeavor within the Veterans Affairs to understand the genetic basis for susceptibility to disease. His work is focused on improving the phenotyping of AKI in genetic studies.