::: Research

Research interests include experimental renal disease, diagnostic human renal pathology, and both experimental and diagnostic vascular pathobiology, with emphasis on atherosclerosis, retenosisinjury and solid organ transplant rejection.

1. Identification and localization of growth factors and cytokines in human renal development, human renal disease, and diseased human arteries;
2. Development of simian models of HIV-associated nephropathy that occurs in humans, using primates infected with SIV, HIV-2, and HIV-1;

3. Development of morphologic techniques to characterize cell proliferation and/or turnover, matrix accumulation, and expression of mediator molecules in vasculopathies and nephropathy;

Development of murine models of cryoglobulinemia and diabetic nephropathy. More specifically, our laboratory is focused on a number of molecules (PDGF, NGFR, a-smooth muscle actin, SPARC, osteopontin, and others) to develop a hypothesis that pathophysiologic processes occurring during renal injury and repair recapitualte processes that occurred during human renal development. In a second area of interest, we currently have successful models of immunodeficiency virus infected macaques, and have been developing molecular probes to analyze details of why specific nephropathies occur in humans and primates infected with one type of virus but not another, as well as to identify factors related to the variable expression of nephropathy within a single cohort of infected animals. We have developed models of human cryoglobulinemic membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis in mice, and also have developed murine models of hyperlipidemia and diabetic nephropathy. Finally, clinical renal interests include definition and characterization of fibrillary glomerulopathies and definition of the pathologic and clinical features of nephropathies related to hepatitis C virus infection, and the use of proliferation markers in human renal biopsies.