Administrative Core
Vikas Dharnidharka, MD
Professor of Pediatrics, Nephrology
Division Director, Pediatric Nephrology
Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine
Vikas Dharnidharka is a patient-oriented researcher with interests in chronic renal failure, pediatric kidney transplantation and post-transplant infections. He perform epidemiological analyses of very large national databases to elucidate risk factors for events and the outcomes after events, typically infectious events. These large databases include UNOS, USRDS, NAPRTCS. HE also participate in multi-center clinical and mechanistic research trials in the areas of chronic renal insufficiency, dialysis and transplantation. His work gets funding from NIH institutes (NIDDK, NIAID) and industry. He is particularly known for my work related to a post-transplant malignancy called post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder (PTLD), caused in most cases by Epstein-Barr virus infection. These issues of infection and malignancy post-transplant have received a lot of attention as we gave our patients more immunosuppression in the hopes of reducing acute rejection rates. His collaborators are numerous. For the prospective clinical trials, his collaborators include pediatric nephrology colleagues at various centers such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, University of Pennsylvania, UCSF, University of Washington and UAB. For his epidemiological studies, he collaborates with an adult nephrologist in the Army, with biostatisticians and epidemiologists at Emmes Corporation and with a biostatistician at UNOS.
Sanjay Jain, MD, PhD
Professor of Medicine, Nephrology
Professor of Pediatrics, Molecular Genetics and Genomics Program
Director Kidney Translational Research Center
Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine
Sanjay Jain is a Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics and Pathology & Immunology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, USA (WUSM). His laboratory focuses on how kidneys and the lower urinary tract develop and organize to maintain homeostasis across lifespan in health and disease. His has defined key developmental pathways and mechanisms that regulate the joining of primitive ureter and bladder, initiation of the collecting system and branching morphogenesis of the kidney and genetic mutations associated with CAKUT. He leads multiple NIH-sponsored atlas efforts to map healthy and disease states in the human kidney including HuBMAP, KPMP, RBK/GUDMAP and Pediatric Center of Excellence in Nephrology. The team has identified, validated and mapped ~100 cell identities in the kidney including healthy and injured cells and defined genes and pathways that help recovery or predict decline in kidney function.