Urine tricarboxylic acid cycle signatures of early-stage diabetic kidney disease.

Uptal Patel, MD is an Adjunct Professor interested in population health with a broad range of clinical and research experience. As an adult and pediatric nephrologist with training in health services and epidemiology, his work seeks to improve population health for patients with  kidney diseases through improvements in prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

Prior efforts focused on four inter-related areas that are essential to improving kidney health: i) reducing the progression of chronic kidney disease by improving its detection and management, particularly by leveraging technology to facilitate engagement and self-management; ii) elucidating the inter-relationships between kidney disease and cardiovascular disease, which together amplify the risk of death; iii) improving the evidence in nephrology through comparative effectiveness research, including clinical trials, observational studies, and meta-analyses; and iv) promoting more optimal clinical health policy for all patients with kidney disease. These inter-disciplinary projects have been funded by a variety of public and private sources including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Veterans Affairs, National Institutes of Health, Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Renal Physicians Association, and the American Society of Nephrology. 

Current efforts seek to advance novel therapies for kidney diseases through early clinical development that he leads at AstraZeneca.

Olga Ilkayeva, Ph.D., is the Director of the Metabolomics Core Laboratory at Duke Molecular Physiology Institute. She received her Ph.D. training in Cell Regulation from UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, TX. Her postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Chris Newgard at Duke University Medical Center focused on lipid metabolism and regulation of insulin secretion. As a research scientist at the Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center, Dr. Ilkayeva expanded her studies to include the development of targeted mass spectrometry analyses. Currently, she works on developing and validating quantitative mass spectrometry methods used for metabolic profiling of various biological models with emphasis on diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and the role of gut microbiome in both health and disease.

Dr. Scialla is an Associate Professor of Medicine in Nephrology at Duke University and a faculty member at the Duke Clinical Research Institute.  Dr. Scialla trained in Internal Medicine, Nephrology, and Clinical Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.  Her research focuses on chronic kidney disease (CKD) epidemiology and prevention, with an emphasis on the role of metabolic complications and nutrition. Current studies are focused on treatment and prevention of abnormal phosphate homeostasis, acid-base physiology, diabetic and other forms of kidney disease, and outcomes in end-stage kidney disease. 

Dr. Scialla’s work engages a number of study designs including prospective cohort studies, observational comparative effectiveness studies, and patient-oriented physiologic studies. She has worked closely with multiple chronic disease cohorts including the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) Study, the African American Study of Kidney Disease and Hypertension (AASK), the Jackson Heart Study (JHS), and secondary analyses in clinical trials. Studies in electronic health records (EHR) and registries have engaged dialysis EHR data, the United States Renal Data System, and public registries, such as the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Physiologic studies include the Acid Base Complication in CKD Study, secondary analyses in the DASH Mechanism Study, and the newly launched MURDOCK Kidney Health Study.