An Interdisciplinary Team Caring for Children With Acute and Chronic Kidney Disease

Doctor performs ultrasound on a young girls kidneys while she lays on table,

Nephrology and Hypertension

Department of Pediatric Annual Report 2022 Banner

Members of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension provide compassionate, state-of-the-art care for patients with acute and chronic kidney disease. Our division is at the forefront of research and discoveries that advance our understanding of kidney disease and its prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. We are dedicated to training physicians in the best practices in pediatric nephrology.

Clinical Services

The division has six full-time and one part-time faculty members and provides comprehensive care for a wide range of kidney conditions. We have designated medical directors for our dialysis program and kidney transplantation program. The division’s dedicated interdisciplinary team includes physicians, a nurse, a nurse practitioner, a medical assistant, a dietitian, and a social worker who are all fully committed to caring for children with kidney disease and supporting them and their families through education and other resources.


Research

The division currently receives NIH funding for basic science, clinical, and translational research. Our broad research areas encompass cell biology of kidney tubular response to ischemic injury or urinary tract obstruction, pathogenesis of acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease, observational studies in glomerular disease, gene discoveries for congenital anomalies of the kidney and urology tract, and genetic studies for chronic kidney disease. We have ongoing and fruitful collaborations with precision medicine, adult nephrology, pathology, and neonatology. The knowledge we derive from this work will serve as the basis of future therapies for kidney disease.


Education

The division is heavily invested in educating future generations of pediatricians and pediatric nephrologists. Since 2012 we have been one of the most popular subspecialties for medical student and resident rotations. Over the past seven years, two of our fellows were named Fellow of the Year and one faculty member was voted Attending of the Year by pediatric residents at Columbia / NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital. Through the Nephrology Fellowship program, we train pediatric nephrologists to achieve high competence in patient care, renal research, and education. The program emphasizes hands-on learning and didactic teaching, and through a rigorous curriculum, fellows learn to diagnose and treat children with a wide spectrum of acute and chronic kidney diseases.


New Appointments


Honors and Awards

Catherine Kavanagh, MD

  • Named one of the Irish Echo's 40 under 40 in March 2022 (New York Irish newspaper)

Fangming Lin, MD, PhD

  • Standing member PBKD/NIH Study Section 2019-2023

Rushelle Byfield, MD, MSCE

  • Recipient of The Office of the Provost’s Target of Opportunity Recruitment Award

Major Grants

  • Generation of new mouse models of low nephron numbers to understand pathogenesis of AKl and CKD in humans born preterm. NIH/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). R01DK118140. Principal Investigator: Fangming Lin, MD, PhD.
  • NYP/WCM/CU pediatric collective power challenge initiative award recipient; Pediatric Chronic Kidney Disease Care and Research at NYP.

Selected Publications

Good PI, Li L, Hurst H, Serrano-Herrera I, Xu K, Rao M, Bateman D, Al-Awqati Q, D’Agati V, Costantini F, Lin F. Low nephron endowment increases susceptibility to renal stress leading to chronic kidney disease. JCI Insight. 2023 Jan. 

Shen TH, Stauber J, Xu K, Jacunski A, Paragas N, Callahan M, Banlengchit R, Levitman AD, Desanti De Oliveira B, Beenken A, Grau MS, Mathieu E, Zhang Q, Li Y, Gopal T, Askanase N, Arumugam S, Mohan S, Good PI, Stevens JS, Lin F, Sia SK, Lin CS, D'Agati V, Kiryluk K, Tatonetti NP, Barasch J. Snapshots of nascent RNA reveal cell- and stimulus-specific responses to acute kidney injury. JCI Insight. 2022;7(6). PMID: 35230973; PMCID: PMC8986083.

Jain NG, Ahram DF, Marasa M, Rehman AU, May HJ, Zacharoulis S, Revah-Politi A, Florido ME, Whittemore GB, Aggarwal VS, Hargus G, Anyane-Yeboa K, D'Agati VD, Lin F, Jobanputra V, Sanna-Cherchi S. Clinical real-time genome sequencing to solve the complex and confounded presentation of a child with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis and multiple malignancies. Kidney Int Rep. 2022;7(10):2312-2316. PMID: 36217514; PMCID: PMC9546728.

Fernandez HE, Foster BJ. Long-term care of the pediatric kidney transplant recipient. CJASN. 2022;17(2):296-304. https://doi.org/10.2215/CJN.16891020.

Rosen RJ, Fernandez HE, Shirazian S, Moses AA. Ultrasound findings of calciphylaxis. Kidney Int. 2021;100(5):1144. doi: 10.1016/j.kint.2021.03.036. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34688380/.

Khairallah P, Robbins-Juarez S, Patel S, Shah V, Toma K, Fernandez HE, Dube GK, King K, Mohan S, Husain SA, Morris H, Crew RJ. Tocilizumab for the treatment of chronic antibody mediated rejection in kidney transplant recipients. Clin Transplant. 2022;e14853. doi:10.1111/ctr.14853. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36398915/.

Husain SA, King K, Owen-Simon NL, Fernandez HE, Ratner LE, Mohan S. Access to kidney transplantation among pediatric candidates with prior solid organ transplants in the United States. Pediatr Transplant. 2022;26(6):e14303. doi: 10.1111/petr.14303. Epub 2022 May 26. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35615911/.

Kavanagh CR, Zanoni F, Leal R, Jain NG, Stack MN, Vasilescu E, Serban G, Shaut C, Kamal J, Kudose S, Martinho A, Alves R, Santoriello D, Canetta PA, Cohen D, Radhakrishnan J, Appel GB, Stokes MB, Markowitz GS, D’Agati VD, Kiryluk K, Andeen NK, Batal I. Clinical predictors and prognosis of recurrent IgA nephropathy in the kidney allograft. Glomerular Dis. 2022;2(1):42-53. doi: 10.1159/000519834. Epub 2021 Sep 24. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35450416/.