Department of Pediatrics Annual Report – 2020
Nephrology and Hypertension
An interdisciplinary team caring for children with acute and chronic kidney disease
Members of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension provide compassionate state-of-the-art care for patients with acute and chronic kidney disease. Our division is at the forefront of research and discoveries that advance our understanding of kidney disease and its prevention, diagnosis, and treatment and train physicians in the best practices in pediatric nephrology.
Clinical Services
The division has five full-time and one part-time faculty members and provides comprehensive care for a wide range of kidney conditions. We have designated medical directors for our dialysis program and kidney transplantation program. The division’s dedicated interdisciplinary team includes physicians, a nurse, a nurse practitioner, a medical assistant, a dietitian, and a social worker who are all fully committed to caring for children with kidney disease and supporting them and their families through education and other resources.
Research
The division currently receives NIH funding for basic science, clinical, and translational research. Our broad research areas encompass cell biology of kidney tubular response to ischemic injury or urinary tract obstruction, pathogenesis of acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease, observational studies in glomerular disease, gene discoveries for congenital anomalies of the kidney and urology tract, and genetic studies for chronic kidney disease. We have ongoing and fruitful collaborations with precision medicine, adult nephrology, pathology, and neonatology that are providing knowledge that will serve as the basis of future therapies for kidney disease.
Education
The division is heavily invested in educating future generations of pediatricians and pediatric nephrologists. Since 2012 we have been one of the most popular subspecialties for medical student and resident rotations. Over the past five years, two of our fellows were named Fellow of the Year and one faculty member was voted Attending of the Year by pediatric residents at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC). Through the Nephrology Fellowship program, we train pediatric nephrologists to achieve high competence in patient care, renal research, and education. The program emphasizes hands-on learning and didactic teaching, and through a rigorous curriculum, fellows learn to diagnose and treat children with a wide spectrum of acute and chronic kidney diseases.
New Appointments
- Samriti Dogra, MD, Assistant Professor, 2018
- Hilda Fernandez, MD, Assistant Professor, 2019
- Catherine Kavanagh, MD, Assistant Professor, 2020
New Programs
Pediatric to Adult Transition Clinic (2019) by Hilda Fernandez, MD, a board-certified nephrologist in both pediatric and adult kidney care at the medical center, provides seamless transition for continuous care from pediatric to adult renal service. Dr. Fernandez teaches adolescents the knowledge and skills to care for their own kidney conditions and prepare their families for this transition.
CUIMC Hypertension Program (2020), part of the Hypertension Center at CUIMC. Working closely with several subspecialties in the adult and pediatric services, we combine the most advanced technologies in hypertension diagnosis with a personalized treatment and care plan for our children and their families.
Honors and Awards
Fangming Lin, MD, PhD
- Promoted to Professor and appointed Rustin McIntosh Professor of Pediatrics
Catherine Kavanagh, MD
- Recipient of Transplant Forum Scholar Award (travel grant for Fellows)
Samriti Dogra, MD
- Columbia Women’s and Children’s Health Faculty Leadership Academy
Major Grants
- Generation of new mouse models of low nephron numbers to understand pathogenesis of AKl and CKD in humans born preterm. NIH/ National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) R01DK118140. Principal Investigator: Fangming Lin, MD.
- Role of autophagy in maladaptive renal repair following acute kidney injury. NIH/ National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) R01 award. Principal Investigator: Fangming Lin, MD.
Selected Publications
Liang R, Arif T, Kalmikova S, Kasianov A, Lin M, Menon V, Qiu J, Bernitz, JM, Moore K, Lin F, Benson D, Tzavaras N, Mahajan M, Papatsenko D, Ghaffari S. Mitochondrial heterogeneity reveals that lysosomal repression is required for the maintenance of hematopoietic stem cell quiescence and potency. Cell Stem Cell. 2020 Mar 5; 26(3): 359-376. PMID 32109377.
Li L, Kang H, Zhang Q, D'Agati VD, Al-Awqati Q, Lin F. FoxO3 activation in hypoxic tubules prevents chronic kidney disease. J Clin Invest. 2019 Mar 26; 129(6): 2374-2389. PMID:30912765.
Majed B, Bateman DA, Uy N, Lin F. Patent ductus arteriosus is associated with acute kidney injury in the preterm infant. Pediatr Nephrol. 2019 Jun; 34(6): 1129-1139. PMID:30706125.
Verbitsky M, Westland R, Perez A, Kiryluk K, Liu Q, Krithivasan P, Mitrotti A, Fasel DA, Batourina E, Sampson MG, Bodria M, Werth M, Kao C, Martino J, Capone VP, Vivante A, Shril S, Kil BH, Marasà M, Zhang JY, Na YJ, Lim TY, Ahram D, Weng PL, Heinzen EL, Carrea A, Piaggio G, Gesualdo L, Manca V, Masnata G, Gigante M, Cusi D, Izzi C, Scolari F, van Wijk JAE, Saraga M, Santoro D, Conti G, Zamboli P, White H, Drozdz D, Zachwieja K, Miklaszewska M, Tkaczyk M, Tomczyk D, Krakowska A, Sikora P, Jarmoliński T, Borszewska-Kornacka MK, Pawluch R, Szczepanska M, Adamczyk P, Mizerska-Wasiak M, Krzemien G, Szmigielska A, Zaniew M, Dobson MG, Darlow JM, Puri P, Barton DE, Furth SL, Warady BA, Gucev Z, Lozanovski VJ, Tasic V, Pisani I, Allegri L, Rodas LM, Campistol JM, Jeanpierre C, Alam S, Casale P, Wong CS, Lin F, Miranda DM, Oliveira EA, Simões-E-Silva AC, Barasch JM, Levy B, Wu N, Hildebrandt F, Ghiggeri GM, Latos-Bielenska A, Materna-Kiryluk A, Zhang F, Hakonarson H, Papaioannou VE, Mendelsohn CL, Gharavi AG, Sanna-Cherchi S. The copy number variation landscape of congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract. Nat Genet. 2019 Jan; 51(1): 117-127. PMID:30578417.
Groopman EE, Marasa M, Cameron-Christie S, Petrovski S, Aggarwal VS, Milo-Rasouly H, Li Y, Zhang J, Nestor J, Krithivasan P, Lam WY, Mitrotti A, Piva S, Kil BH, Chatterjee D, Reingold R, Bradbury D, DiVecchia M, Snyder H, Mu X, Mehl K, Balderes O, Fasel DA, Weng C, Radhakrishnan J, Canetta P, Appel GB, Bomback AS, Ahn W, Uy NS, Alam S, Cohen DJ, Crew RJ, Dube GK, Rao MK, Kamalakaran S, Copeland B, Ren Z, Bridgers J, Malone CD, Mebane CM, Dagaonkar N, Fellström BC, Haefliger C, Mohan S, Sanna-Cherchi S, Kiryluk K, Fleckner J, March R, Platt A, Goldstein DB, Gharavi AG. Diagnostic utility of exome sequencing for kidney disease. N Engl J Med. 2019 Jan 10; 380(2): 142-151. PMID:30586318.
Kavanagh C, Uy NS. Nephrogenic diabetes insipidus. Pediatr Clin North Am. 2019 Feb; 66(1): 227-234. Review, PMID:30454745.
Carrión-Barberà I, Fajardo M, Danias G, Tsapepas D, Gartshteyn Y, Fernandez H, Askanase A. Belatacept in kidney transplant patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. Lupus Sci Med. 2019 Dec 22; 6(1): e000355. PMID:31908816.
Ashoor IF, Mansfield SA, O'Shaughnessy MM, Parekh RS, Zee J, Vasylyeva TL, Kogon AJ, Sethna CB, Glenn DA, Chishti AS, Weaver DJ, Helmuth ME, Fernandez HE, Rheault MN, CureGN Consortium. Prevalence of cardiovascular disease risk factors in childhood glomerular diseases. J Am Heart Assoc. 2019 Jul 16; 8(14). PMID:31286821
Highlights
Patient Spotlight: Sakeenah and Siraj Wadood
Sakeenah Wadood was five months pregnant when her obstetrician in Sullivan County, NY told her that her baby boy might only live for a matter of minutes. A prenatal ultrasound had shown that his kidneys were enlarged, and that Sakeenah’s amniotic fluid levels were low. Optimal levels of amniotic fluid are crucial for fetal lung development, and her doctor was concerned that the baby’s lungs would not develop properly and that he wouldn’t be able to breathe on his own. His enlarged kidneys also signaled a serious abnormality in his urinary tract.
Lin Lab
Research in the Lin Lab is focused on understanding the pathogenesis of acute kidney injury (AKI) and the transition of AKI to chronic kidney disease (CKD). We take the approaches of cell and molecular biology, renal pathophysiology, and mouse genetics to understand kidney tubular stress response to ischemic injury and metabolic perturbation.