Menon Lab

Our projects span basic, translational and clinical studies. Broadly, we investigate how non-HLA genetic variants influence chronic kidney disease (CKD) in native and allograft kidneys using bedside-to-bench approaches. Our focus is on unravelling mechanisms of proteinuria as well as renal fibrosis (scarring) using novel invitro tools and unique transgenic mouse models we have developed. Specifically, we are interested in renal fibrosis mechanisms downstream of Shroom3 - a gene where mutations predispose to CKD. In podocytes we study AMPK signaling as a switch signal between Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) and minimal change disease in injured podocytes. We are interested in interaction between allo-immune cells (T-cells) and the development of progressive kidney disease with reference to FSGS-causing APOL1 risk alleles.