Research Areas:
Our laboratory is a part of the Nephrology pision in the Rabin Medical Center.
Our research area involves clinical and basic studies of glomerular diseases with main interest in diabetic nephropathy, obesity-related glomerulopathy and recently also pediatric nephrotic syndrome. We study the expression of microRNA and mRNA in human kidneys and in urinary exosomes. The major methodology in our laboratory consists of extraction of RNA from FFPE human kidney biopsies using LCM for studies of genes expression involved in lipid metabolism, podocyte genes, fibrosis and parietal cells regeneration into podocyte. We work with human podocyte cell lines, as well as other kidney cell lines, studying the mechanism of podocyte injury and regeneration in diabetic nephropathy. We also use patient's biological samples for the isolation and characterization of urine and blood exosomes as a "liquid biopsies" for kidney disease.
Research Topics:
1.Gene expression profile in different kidney pathologies such as obesity-related glomerulopathy and in diabetic nephropathy in human kidney biopsies. Our main focus is on lipid metabolic pathways and in therapeutic targets that can attenuate kidney injury including bile acid receptors agonists, SGLT inhibitors and GLP1 agonist.
2.The role of CD44 de-novo expression in the mechanism of glomerular parietal cell activation and podocyte regeneration in diabetic nephropathy and glomerular diseases. We study the role of CD44 using CD44KO mice and expression in kidney biopsies.
3.Urinary exosomes as biomarkers and therapeutic targets (in collaboration with Dr. Romy Zemel). We study BK virus associated nephropathy following renal transplantation. We evaluate the potential use of urine exosomes as a novel and non-invasive biomarker for diagnosis of kidney diseases.
4.The role of TNF signaling in the mechanism of pediatric nephrotic syndrome. We have exciting preliminary data showing the role of TNF/TNFR2 pathway activation in the modulation of childhood nephrotic syndrome.
טיפות שומן בפודוציטים בכליה של חולה עם obesity-related glomerulopathy במקרוסקופ אלקטרוני.
תמונות מחיתוך ביופסיות כליה ב-LCM לפני ואחרי חיתוך הגלומרולי כולל התאים הפריאתלים. אנו בודקים בטוי גנים בחלקים השונים של הביופסיה.