Dr. Darren Yuen is a nephrologist, clinician–scientist, and Canada Research Chair in Fibrotic Injury at the University of Toronto. He is internationally recognized for pioneering work that has transformed our understanding of fibrosis—one of the most important drivers of organ failure.

Dr. Yuen’s research has uncovered central signaling pathways underlying fibrogenesis. His laboratory was the first to identify proteins YAP and TAZ as master fibrosis regulators, showing that their activation drives scarring in the kidney, lung, and liver (J Am Soc Nephrol 2017, JCI Insight 2022). He further demonstrated that NUAK1 is a kinase that activates YAP/TAZ to drive fibrosis (Sci Transl Med 2022). More recently, his group demonstrated that podocyte YAP/TAZ hyperactivation drives the pathogenesis of crescentic glomerulopathies, a collection of often rapidly progressive kidney diseases. These insights led in 2017 to his co-founding of Fibrocor Therapeutics, a company that has first-in-human clinical trials planned for 2026. 

Separately, Dr. Yuen has also developed imaging platforms to non-invasively quantify kidney fibrosis. In early work, he demonstrated that magnetic resonance elastography (Clin J Am Soc Nephrol 2017) and photoacoustic imaging (JCI Insight 2020) can be used to measure organ fibrosis. More recently, he developed new technology that can analyze a standard 3 second ultrasound scan to accurately quantify transplant kidney fibrosis and predict kidney function 1 year post-scan (Nature Medicine 2025). These technologies hold promise for improving kidney assessment and personalizing care for patients with kidney disease.

Reflecting the important contributions he has made, Dr. Yuen has first or senior author publications in leading journals, including JCI Insight, Nature Medicine, Science Translational Medicine, and J Am Soc Nephrol. Additionally, his work has been featured multiple times in the lay press, and his commercialization efforts have led to 9 filed patents, as well as the co-founding of Fibrocor Therapeutics.