Summer Internship Program

Our laboratory studies kidney regeneration. Acute kidney injury is a common condition associated with significant morbidity, mortality, and cost. Remarkably, kidney cells that are damaged in the most common forms of severe kidney injury can regenerate. However, no treatments are currently available that encourage this regeneration, in part because the mechanisms that control this process remain poorly understood. Likewise, efforts to develop bio-artificial kidney technologies have been limited by an inability to regenerate functional kidney cells outside of the body. Our research aims to understand the molecular and genetic regulators that govern kidney regeneration and exploit this knowledge to develop new therapeutic approaches to treat kidney injury and to engineer new technologies that promote regeneration of functional kidney tissue ex vivo.

I am the Medical Director of the Living Donor Kidney Transplant Program. My research interests include improving living kidney donor outcomes. My research includes understanding the impact of the APOL1 genotype on donor outcomes, and I am one of the PIs on the NIH-sponsored APOLLO study. In addition, nationally I am co-leading a work group on the psychosocial evaluation of living donors, particularly those with a history of substance use disorder and mental health disorders. I am also passionate about removing financial disincentives to living donation. I have been working closely with my local state government and these efforts have successfully removed some of these barriers.
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I am creating a living donor data repository at University of Michigan and looking forward to working with students with computer skills.

Dr. Ju is a Research Scientist in the Department of Medicine, Division of Nephrology, at the University of Michigan. Her team is dedicated to identifying and assessing molecular pathways associated with chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression, as well as mechanism-based candidate biomarkers that predict the risk of CKD progression and patients’ responses to cardiorenal protective drugs. They integrate advanced techniques in molecular and cellular biology, multi-omics data, bioinformatic analysis, and existing knowledge to achieve their research goals. Their translational research has identified promising new drug candidates and non-invasive biomarkers, contributing significantly to the advancement of kidney precision medicine.

Dr. Mariani is a nephrologist with a clinical and research interest in rare kidney diseases, including glomerular disease.  She is the PI of the data coordinating center for CureGN (CureGN.org), an NIH funded cohort study which recruits patients from 70 sites.  Dr. Mariani's primary research interest is in developing and applying statistical methods for clinical outcome definition and prediction of kidney disease progression as well as linking clinical phenotype to novel biomarkers and high dimensional omics data to better understand disease mechanisms that can be targeted for therapy in glomerular disease.

William (Bill) Rainey is the Jerome Conn Professor of Physiology and Internal Medicine. The Rainey Research Lab focuses on defining the mechanisms regulating normal and excess production of adrenal steroid hormones. Adrenal steroid excess causes two of the major forms of endocrine hypertension, Cushing syndrome and primary aldosteronism, which together cause ten percent of hypertension cases. Using various forms of next generation sequencing, our lab is identifying gene mutations that cause both Cushing syndrome and primary aldosteronism. Our undergraduate summer research program allows students to learn molecular and cellular biology techniques that help define new disease-causing mutations and mechanisms of action.

Dr. Rajiv Saran is Professor of Internal Medicine and the Florence E. Bingham Endowed Chair, in Division of Nephrology, Department of Internal Medicine, at the University of Michigan (UM), in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and a practicing nephrologist at the Ann Arbor VA Hospital. He is also Professor of Epidemiology at UM’s School of Public Health. The Saran Research Team is based at the University of Michigan’s Kidney Epidemiology and Cost Center (KECC). He is passionate about prevention of kidney disease and related chronic diseases nationally, and globally. Dr. Saran is an internationally recognized expert in kidney disease research – specifically, in kidney disease surveillance and epidemiology. He served as Director of the United States Renal Data System (USRDS; www.usrds.org), a ‘gold standard’ for kidney disease data systems worldwide, from 2014-2019. Since 2006, he led the Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) National CKD Surveillance System for the US, that is focused on upstream surveillance of CKD using multiple data sources in the United States (www.cdc.org/ckd/surveillance). Dr. Saran led the development of the first National Kidney Disease Information System (VA-REINS; 2012-2016), for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). His recent research has focused on improving surveillance systems for greater public health impact, using data tackling health disparities, while developing and evaluating the use of prediction analytics (using healthcare data), to help inform earlier stage prevention of chronic diseases, with kidney disease as an exemplar.

Dr. Oliverio is a nephrologist who is interested in kidney disease, with specific attention to women’s health outcomes and their preferences in healthcare decision making. She currently focuses on pregnancy outcomes in women with chronic kidney disease and is developing and testing interventions to improve informed decision making, patient-physician communication, and preconception counseling for women with CKD.

Dr. Kretzler is the Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor of Internal Medicine/Nephrology and Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics. The overarching goal of his research is to define chronic organ dysfunction in mechanistic terms and use this knowledge for targeted therapeutic interventions. To reach this goal he has developed a translational research pipeline centered on integrated systems biology analysis of renal disease.

He has 25 years of experience in integration of bioinformatics, molecular and clinical approaches in more than 450 publications. He has a track record on interdisciplinary data integration of large-scale data sets in international multi-disciplinary research networks in the US, Europe, China and sub-Saharan Africa. These studies enable precision medicine across the genotype-phenotype continuum using carefully monitored environmental exposures, genetic predispositions, epigenetic markers, transcriptional networks, proteomic profiles, metabolic fingerprints, digital histological biopsy archive and prospective clinical disease characterization. The molecular mechanism identified have result in new disease predictors and successful phase II trial of a novel therapeutic modality in diabetic kidney disease.

Dr. Bitzer is a Physician-Scientist in Nephrology. His research is focused on discovery of mechanisms, biomarkers and treatments for secondary/mal-adaptive Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). Mal-adaptive FSGS is likely the most common glomerular disease, is found in patients with systemic diseases like hypertension, diabetes mellitus, obesity, and glomerular diseases like IgA nephropathy, and it presence if associated with worse outcomes (faster decline in kidney function). Damage and loss of glomerular epithelial cells (podocytes) is one of the central mechanisms for the development of FSGS.

We are using human kidney tissue from patients with or without early stage maladaptive FSGS enrolled in PRECISE study, to associate highly granular structural parameters for the glomerular, tubular, interstitial and vascular compartments with clinical parameters and longitudinal outcomes. To discover underlying molecular mechanisms, we associate bulk, single cell and spatial RNA-sequencing and proteomic data with structural and clinical parameters. Findings will be validated in data sets of independent studies with related diseases and by immunohistochemistry of human kidney tissue and mouse models of kidney disease. The function of genes and proteins of interests will be investigated in cultured kidney cells and its role as biomarkers will be assessed in biofluid of diverse other cohorts. Students can participate in any of the steps, but analysis of existing data and immunohistochemistry of human and mouse kidney tissue is most feasible.

Fadhl Alakwaa is a dedicated computational biologist and assistant scientist specializing in leveraging big data to uncover new treatments for kidney disease. With a passion for discovery and innovation, he has made significant strides in the field, combining expertise in bioinformatics and multi-omics to address complex challenges in kidney research. Recognized for his exceptional mentorship, Dr. Alakwaa was nominated for the UROP Best Mentor Award in both 2021 and 2023. His commitment to empowering emerging scientists is evident through his guidance, which has led to multiple projects winning the prestigious Ribon Award for Best Presentation. Dr. Alakwaa finds immense joy in mentoring the next generation of researchers, fostering curiosity and excellence in kidney disease science.