scientific advisory board
Joseph Bonventre, MD
SAB Chairperson, Nephrologist
Dr. Bonventre is Chief of the Division of Kidney Medicine and Chief of the Engineering in Medicine Division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and has had a long-standing interest in various aspects of cellular injury and repair mechanisms in the kidney with a special emphasis on the role of inflammation, biomarkers and stem cells. He has established the origin of the epithelial cells that repair the kidney after injury as dedifferentiated surviving proximal tubule cells. He was the first to describe the role of proximal tubule cell cycle arrest in the maladaptive fibrosis that can occur after severe injury leading to chronic kidney disease. He discovered and characterized Kidney Injury Molecule-1 (KIM-1) as the most highly upregulated protein in the proximal tubule after injury to the kidney of various types. KIM-1 expression converts the proximal tubule cell to a phagocyte. KIM-1 has been qualified by the FDA and European Medicines Agency as a sensitive and specific urinary biomarker for kidney injury in preclinical studies of nephrotoxicity and as part of a panel for studies exploring nephrotoxicity. In 2015 he was found to be the most cited investigator in Acute Kidney Injury. His work has been cited more than 64,000 times and he has an h-index of 132. He published the first demonstration of creation of an iPS cell line from a kidney disease, polycystic kidney disease, which has an abnormality with plausible significance with respect to the etiology of the disease. iPS cells generated from fibroblasts of humans with autosomal dominant PKD had reduced ciliary levels of polycystin-2 which could be rescued in iPS-derived hepatoblasts by overexpression of polycystin-1. This work opened up the possibility to conduct “kidney clinical trials in a dish” with patient specific cells that can be evaluated for efficacy of potential therapeutic agents. He developed a rapid and efficient process by which human iPS and ES cells can be differentiated into intermediate mesoderm and subsequently form organoids- multisegmented kidney structures containing glomerular-like cell clusters surrounded by an epithelial layer mimicking Bowman’s capsule, connected to a continuous tubular structure with properties of proximal tubule, followed by loop of Henle and distal convoluted tubule. These proximal tubule structures have secretory function and specificity of response to toxins. KIM-1 is expressed with nephrotoxins only in proximal tubule segments. He supplemented this work with studies using genome editing (CRISPR) approaches to inactivate genes to study PKD and the function of podocalyxin, a glomerular podocyte protein, to regulate cell-cell interactions.
Michael Koren, MD
Cardiovascular Surgeon
Chief Executive Officer and Director at the Jacksonville Center for Clinical Research (JCCR) of the Encore Research Group in Jacksonville, Florida. Dr. Koren directs activities at JCCR, a multispecialty research organization with eight locations that has conducted more than 1000 trials involving over 100 investigators. He also is a practicing cardiologist with the First Coast Heart and Vascular.
Dr. Koren is an honors graduate of Brandeis University and Harvard Medical School. During his medical school training, he completed additional course work at the Harvard School for Public Health and wrote an M.D. thesis involving computer decision analysis. More recently he was awarded a US patent for developing the software system Ask100Doctors. Dr. Koren received his postdoctoral training at New York Hospital/ Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center/ Cornell University Medical Center in internal medicine and cardiology. During his postdoctoral training, Dr. Koren served as a third-year chief resident, held a faculty position and published several papers and abstracts.
In recent years, Dr. Koren has served as the international lead principal investigator for several large multiple centered trials including ALLIANCE (a pivotal statin study), ROLE (ranolazine safety study), MENDEL (evolocumab) and OSLER (evolocumab). His scientific work, numbering over 100 abstracts and manuscripts, has been published in leading medical journals such as the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Circulation, New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet.
Dr. Koren has become interested in “the research of research.” He has presented abstracts on this subject at national meetings and served as a Past President and Board Member for the Academy of Physicians in Clinical Research (APCR) and twice as co-chair of the Ponte Vedra Cardiovascular Symposium.
Anupam Agarwal, MD
Nephrologist
Dr. Anupam Agarwal is currently Director, Division of Nephrology, and Executive Vice Dean, School of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). He also serves as the Program Director of the NIH/NIDDK funded O’Brien Center for Acute Kidney Injury Research. He has graduate faculty status in the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, Pathology and Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology at UAB.
Dr. Agarwal has an active role in clinical medicine, teaching, research and administration. He is intensively involved in the teaching of medical students, internal medicine house staff and nephrology fellows and has been a recipient of Outstanding Teaching Awards from the Department of Medicine at the University of Florida as well as at UAB. Dr. Agarwal has been responsible for the training of 18 pre- and 20 post-doctoral fellows in his laboratory, several of whom have been successful in obtaining post-doctoral fellowships from the American Society of Nephrology, American Heart Association and the National Kidney Foundation and have continued to pursue active academic careers.
Dr. Agarwal’s research program has provided critical insights regarding the protective nature and significance of heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) in vascular and renal inflammation, and the molecular regulation of the human HO-1 gene. His bibliography includes 155 peer-reviewed papers and 35 invited reviews/book chapters, the former appearing in journals such as the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Journal of Experimental Medicine, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Circulation, Circulation Research, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, American Journal of Pathology as well as others. He has been recognized by the Max Cooper award for excellence in research, the Thomas Andreoli Professorship in Nephrology, election to membership in the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), American Clinical and Climatological Association (ACCA), Association of American Physicians (AAP) the Marie S. Ingalls Endowed Chair in Nephrology leadership, a Dean’s Excellence award for leadership and the Graduate Dean’s Excellence in Mentorship award at UAB. He is the recipient of the UAB National Alumni Society Honorary Alumnus award and a Laureate Recipient for the Alabama Chapter of the American College of Physicians.
Dr. Agarwal has been invited to present at national and international meetings including the Annual Gifford Symposium, American Society of Nephrology, International Society of Nephrology, International conferences on HO in Italy, Sweden and Krakow, International Biometals Congress in Germany, Dutch Society of Nephrology, National Eye Institute, a state-of-the-art lecture at the Southern Society for Clinical Investigation and several prestigious named lectureships. He has been recognized for his leadership by several awards including Young Investigator awards from the National Kidney Foundation, election to the Council of the Society for Free Radical Biology and Fellow of the American Heart Association’s Council on the Kidney in Cardiovascular Disease, his serving on national and international review panels and editorial boards of prestigious journals. Dr. Agarwal served as Chair, Organizing Committee for the 6th International Congress on Heme Oxygenases in 2009. He has served on the Program Committee of the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) and was the Chair of this committee for the 2013 Annual Meeting. He has been a member of the ASN Council since 2014 and will serve as ASN President in 2020.
Sumit Mohan, MD
Transplant Nephrologist
Dr. Mohan’s research is focused on improving outcomes for patients with kidney disease. In the area of kidney transplantation, his current work is focused on issues related to access to the transplant waitlist, improving organ utilization and outcomes following kidney transplantation. He is a member of several national committees focused on these issues and the deputy editor for Kidney International Reports.
Jack Boyd, MD
Cardiothoracic Surgeon
Jack Boyd, MD is a Board Certified Cardiothoracic Surgeon and Clinical Associate Professor at Stanford University. He received his BA from the University of Notre Dame in 1996 and his MD from Indiana University School of Medicine in 2000. He completed his General Surgery, 2006, and Cardiothoracic training, 2009, at Indiana University. He then undertook fellowship training in Robotic Cardiac Surgery at Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati and Minimally Invasive Valve Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania before joining the faculty at Indiana University in 2010. In 2014, he was recruited the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Stanford to serve as the Surgical Director of the Advanced Coronary Revascularization Program. He specializes in adult cardiac surgery and has expertise in on and off pump as well as minimally invasive and robotic coronary artery bypass grafting. He also has expertise in minimally invasive valve and myocardial bridge surgery, and he serves as the Co-Surgical Director of the Lung and Heart/Lung Program.
Dr. Boyd is a member of many medical and surgical organizations including the American Heart Association, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, and the International Society of Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgeons. He has been named a Top Doctor in the US News & World Report.
Ken Newell, MD
Transplant Surgeon
Dr. Newell came to Emory from the University of Chicago, where he had been serving as director of kidney and pancreas transplantation. Prior to joining the faculty of UChicago, he earned his PhD in immunology and completed an abdominal transplantation fellowship at the institution. He received his medical degree from the University of Michigan and completed his general surgery residency at Loyola Medical Center in Illinois.
Dr. Newell served as director of Emory’s living donor kidney transplant program from 2003-2014 and established Emory’s unrelated paired donor kidney exchange program in 2007. His various research pursuits have included optimizing belatacept as an immunosuppressant in renal transplantation, identification and mechanistic investigations of tolerant kidney transplant patients, and the development of transplant strategies uniquely responsive to the needs of children.
Dr. Newell served as president of the American Society of Transplantation from 2014-2015, was an at large member of the OPTN/UNOS Vascularized Composite Allograft Transplant (VCA) Committee from 2013-2016, and chaired the Mechanistic Studies Subcommittee of the Clinical Trials in Organ Transplantation program of the NIH.
Matthew Cooper, MD
Transplant Surgeon
Dr Cooper is the Director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation and Transplant Quality at the MedStar Georgetown Transplant Institute and a Professor of Surgery at Georgetown University School of Medicine. Dr. Cooper is board certified in general surgery and accredited by the American Society of Transplant Surgeons. Dr. Cooper is also the NKR Surgical Director and Chair of its Surgical Committee. Dr. Cooper serves on the Board of Directors for UNOS, the National Kidney Foundation, the American Foundation for Donation and Transplantation, Donate Life America, and the International Pancreas and Islet Cell Association.
After receiving his medical degree from the Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1994, Dr. Cooper completed his general surgery training at the Medical College of Wisconsin followed by a fellowship in multi-organ abdominal transplantation in 2002 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. He joined the transplant faculty at the Johns Hopkins Hospital upon completion of his training and was appointed Surgical Director of Kidney Transplantation and Clinical Research in 2003. Dr. Cooper joined the University of Maryland in 2005 directing the kidney transplant and clinical research program until 2012 following which he assumed his current role in Washington, DC.
Matthew Weir, MD
Transplant Nephrologist
Matthew R. Weir, M.D. is attending physician and Director of the Division of Nephrology in the Department of Medicine at the University of Maryland Hospital, Baltimore. He is also Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Dr. Weir’s primary research interests include the use of antihypertensive therapy for the treatment of diabetic nephropathy, hypertensive renal injury in African Americans, cardiovascular disease in patients with chronic kidney disease, and mineralocorticoid receptor antagonism to treat atherosclerosis. He has written more than 600 manuscripts and book chapters about these topics. He has edited 8 books on topics in nephrology, transplantation, and hypertension. He has presented at numerous international scientific association meetings, hospitals, and medical schools.
Dr. Weir currently reviews manuscripts for more than 30 major medical journals, including the American Society of Nephrology, and Archives of Internal Medicine. He is on the editorial board of 18 journals and is Section Editor of Current Hypertension Reports and Current Opinion in Hypertension and Nephrology, and Associate Editor of Clinical Nephrology and the American Journal of Nephrology. He has 5 active NIH supported grants: three from NIDDK, and two from NHLBI. In addition, he is a member of numerous associations, including the American Society of Nephrology, the National Kidney Foundation, the American Heart Association, and the American Society of Transplantation.
Dr. Weir received his medical degree from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. He completed his internship and residency programs in medicine at the Waterbury and Yale-New Haven Hospitals in Connecticut, and completed his nephrology training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, in Boston, Massachusetts. He then moved to then to the University of Maryland where he has been a full time faculty member since 1983.
Gregory P. Downey, MD
Pulmonologist
Gregory P. Downey, MD, BSc, FRCP(C), FCCP is a Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, and Biomedical Research and the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at National Jewish Health in Denver, CO. Dr. Downey is also a Professor of Medicine and Immunology and Microbiology and the Associate Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Colorado, Denver.
Dr. Downey’s primary research is focused on the mechanisms of lung injury, repair, and fibrosis and he is an internationally recognized leader in this field. He has authored over 240 peer reviewed publications, reviews, and book chapters and his work has been cited more than 17,000 times.
Clinically, Dr. Downey is a pulmonary and critical care physician and specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of interstitial lung diseases including pulmonary fibrosis and other rare lung diseases. He has participated as site PI in the Rare Lung Disease Consortium and in multicenter national and international Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials including the NIH sponsored MILES and MILED trials for treatment of lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) and the DoD-sponsored GLIDE trial for Deployment Lung Disease.
Dr. Downey received his medical degree from the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg. He completed his internship and residency programs in medicine at Beth Israel and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and The University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. He has been with National Jewish Health and The University of Colorado School of Medicine since 2007.