I am a versatile physician scientist with expertise in translational molecular analysis, clinical trials, nephrology, and clinical pharmacology. My primary research efforts focus on the relationship between transcriptomic and genomic markers to drug efficacy and adverse events relevant in renal disease. Within the Kidney Precision Medicine Project (KPMP), I help to oversee the integration of single-cell RNA sequencing, miRNA sequencing, proteomics, and spatial transcriptomics. As a co-corresponding author, I provided spatial anchoring for the KPMP / HuBMAP’s atlas of kidney cells in health and disease (Nature, PMID: 37468583) and a renal papilla atlas (PMID: 37468493). I led the KPMP epigenome work group which released a spatially anchored epigenome atlas, linking ATAC-seq to DNA methylation and CUT&RUN (PMID: 37333123). Within our U01 Obrien center, I lead our University’s Spatial Transcriptomics efforts.

I have served as lead clinician and principal investigator on multiple clinical studies related to molecular predictors of drug response and pharmacogenomics. As part of my K08, I conducted a clinical study of 40 healthy volunteers in which we identified transcriptomic contributors to inter-individual variability for the immunosuppressant mycophenolic acid using single cell sequencing (PMID: 32415749). I served as lead clinician on a pharmacogenomic trial (NCT02297126) called INGENIOUS where I assessed enrolled subjects (N=1315) for drug-drug and drug-gene interactions and counseled clinicians on genetic test results (PMID: 26850569, 30784356). My laboratory developed a CLIA-validated genotyping assay with antihypertensive efficacy and chronic kidney disease genetic predictors including APOL1 (PMID: 30489456) which was used in a prospective cohort study of individuals (N=580) with kidney disease (PMID: 32224869). Components of the assay are the backbone of another study called the GUARDD-US trial (NCT04191824). I was the IUSM site PI for GUARDD-US which is focused on APOL1-associated kidney disease and pharmacogenomics of hypertension, recruiting 1431 subjects in 3 years (PMID: 35660539).