Eric Au, MD
Eric is a transplant nephrologist based at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Australia and is interested in the epidemiology of post-transplant complications such as cancer. He also works at the Australia and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant Registry and as a senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne.
Sheeram Akilesh, MD, PhD
Dr. Akilesh is a kidney pathologist who specializes in novel sequencing and computational approaches to study kidney cancer, seeking to mine the patient’s own tumor tissue for insights on how cancer starts and opportunities for treatment. He collaborates with numerous other cancer researchers and pioneered the use of cutting-edge technologies such as tumor microphysiological systems, epigenomics and spatial transcriptomics using primary human tissues. This work has been recognized by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research fellowship, and he received the Early Career Research Awards from the Renal Pathology Society and the 14th International Podocyte Conference.
Allyson Hart, MD, MS
Dr. Allyson Hart, MD, MS (she/her), is a nephrologist at Hennepin Healthcare, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota, and Senior Staff for Patient and Family Affairs at the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. Her research interests include patient engagement in research and policy, risk prediction and the use of statistical modeling to create tools that are useful in clinical settings, and the development of feasible behavioral change interventions to improve outcomes in patients with chronic kidney disease.
Sarah Lee, MD
Sarah Lee, MD, is an oncologist/hematologist at the City of Hope. She specializes in plasma-cell disorders. Her research interests include studying novel therapies for multiple myeloma, amyloidosis and other plasma cell disorders.
Naoka Murakami, MD
Naoka Murakami is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and a transplant nephrologist at the Renal Division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her primary research focus is allograft tolerance and T cell immunobiology, and her research projects have been supported by NIH and American Society of Nephrology. Her clinical focus is on the care for kidney transplant recipients with cancer (Transplant Onconephrology), in collaboration with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Yue-Harn Ng, MD
Dr. Yue-Harn Ng is an Associate Professor of Medicine and the Transplant Nephrology Fellowship Program Director at the University of Washington, and is the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion lead in her division, with a special interest in improving healthcare access in the underserved population. Dr. Ng’s research interest is in identifying causes and addressing disparities in access to kidney transplant, and she works to improve access to transplant for those facing barriers. She is currently working with the National Kidney Foundation to improve access to kidney transplant for all through advocacy and education of patients and kidney disease providers.
Andrew Portuguese, MD
Andrew J. Portuguese, MD is a multiple myeloma-focused clinician within the Bone Marrow Transplantation and Immunotherapy group at Fred Hutch. His research focuses on the intersection of hematologic malignancies and immune system modulation. He utilizes spatial multiomics and statistical modeling to identify biomarkers for disease risk stratification.
David Prince, PhD
David is a biostatistician with the Kidney Research Institute at the University of Washington. He works on a broad variety of kidney-related projects including examining rates of transplant referral over time, associations of kidney biopsy characteristics and biomarkers over time, and national associations of community health center penetration and kidney outcomes. Previously, he has worked as in independent statistician for data monitoring committees for clinical trials, primarily in oncology, and on clinical trials in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
Kelly Smith, MD, MPH
Kelly Smith is a practicing Renal and Cardiovascular Pathologist, an Immunologist and the Co-Director of the UW Spatial Biology Core; he also directs Northwest BioTrust and BioSpecimen, which provides researchers with human biospecimens and pathologic testing. Conducting research in immunology for over 20 years, his efforts have included human transplant immunology, innate immunity, mucosal innate immunity, and kidney disease. His major research focus is understanding human kidney disease and facilitating access to human biospecimens to promote research on human disease and the development of human models needed for precision diagnostics and therapeutics.
Bessie Young, MD
Bessie A. Young, MD, is a nephrologist and professor of medicine at the University of Washington (UW). In addition, she holds the following UW Medicine positions: Vice Dean of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and Medical Director of the Office of Health Care Equity; and Inaugural Director of UW Medicine Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Center for Transformational Research. Her research interests include health inequities, racial and ethnic differences in kidney disease, diabetes, APOL1, and transplantation.