Mission
Our mission is to discover why kidneys fail and to turn that knowledge into better care for adults and children. We do this by removing the walls between laboratories, clinics and institutions: a finding in a mouse model at Penn can be tested in a pediatric cohort at CHOP within the same group, and a question from the dialysis unit can reach a geneticist or a biostatistician within a week.
The Center was founded as a joint initiative of the Perelman School of Medicine and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. It is led by two co-directors, one from each institution, and supported by directors of the four shared cores and the leads of the research programs.
Co-Directors
Katalin Susztak, MD, PhD
Willard and Rhoda Ware Professor of Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases, Professor of Medicine and Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine; Professor of Pediatrics, CHOP. Member of the National Academy of Medicine. Her laboratory studies the genetics, cell biology and artificial intelligence of kidney disease and runs the largest human kidney tissue biobank in the world.
Michelle Denburg, MD, MSCE
Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Perelman School of Medicine. Director of the Pediatric Center of Excellence in Nephrology. Her research addresses bone and mineral metabolism, glomerular disease and outcomes of chronic kidney disease in children.
Core directors
Jarcy Zee, PhD
Assistant Professor of Biostatistics, Penn and CHOP
Simone Sanna-Cherchi, MD
Perelman School of Medicine and CHOP; physician-scientist in the genetics of congenital and glomerular kidney disease
Katalin Susztak, MD, PhD
Perelman School of Medicine
Michelle Denburg, MD, MSCE and Susan Furth, MD, PhD
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
The kidney at Penn and CHOP
The Center is the meeting place of a much larger kidney community. These are the clinics, institutes, cores and consortia that its members belong to.
Penn Medicine clinical programs
Penn Kidney Medicine
Glomerular Diseases, Lupus Nephritis, Amyloidosis and Paraproteinemia clinics; Comprehensive Hypertension Center; Cardiorenal and Ultrafiltration Program; Kidney Stone Clinic; PKD Clinic (PKD Foundation Center of Excellence); dialysis and home dialysis; kidney palliative care.
Penn Transplant Institute
Kidney and pancreas transplantation and the Living Kidney Donor Program.
Abramson Cancer Center, kidney cancer
Multidisciplinary care and trials for renal cell carcinoma.
Penn research institutes and cores
Penn Medicine BioBank
Genotypes, exomes and health records of more than 300,000 participants.
CRIC Scientific and Data Coordinating Center
Penn houses the coordinating center of the NIDDK Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort.
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Pediatric Center of Excellence in Nephrology
The NIDDK P50 center for pediatric nephrology clinical trials.
Pediatric Kidney Stone Center and Frontier Program
One of the largest pediatric stone centers in the country; PKIDS and the PONY center.
Inherited Kidney Diseases Program
PKD Foundation Pediatric Center of Excellence for genetic kidney disease.
Pediatric Kidney Transplant and Dialysis Program
Transplantation and all dialysis modalities for children.
Glomerular Disease Clinic and LINC
Glomerular disease and the Lupus Integrated Nephritis Clinic.
PEDSnet and Clinical Futures
The pediatric learning health system and CHOP's clinical effectiveness center.
Consortia and training
CKiD
Chronic Kidney Disease in Children; CHOP is a clinical coordinating center.
NEPTUNE and CureGN
The NIDDK glomerular disease networks, with Penn and CHOP as participating centers.
PERFORM-KUH
The Philadelphia mentored research training program in kidney, urologic and hematologic diseases.
PennKDSAP
The student-run kidney disease screening and awareness program.
Contact
Smilow Center for Translational Research, 3400 Civic Center Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA 19104
215-898-2009
Katalin Susztak: ksusztak@pennmedicine.upenn.edu · Michelle Denburg: denburgm@chop.edu