Our Faculty
Nephrology Faculty
Leadership Team
Martin Pollak, MDProfessor of Medicine,
Chief of the Division of Nephrology
Martin Pollak attended medical school at New York University School of Medicine and completed both his internship and residency at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Dr. Pollak went on to complete his renal fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He was an associate professor in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Harvard before being named to his current position at BIDMC. The Pollak laboratory studies the genetic basis of kidney disease and is often credited with the discovery of the increased risk of kidney disease in those with African ancestry who carry the high risk ApoL1 genotype. A major focus of his current studies is understanding the biology of APOL1-associated kidney disease. His work is supported by numerous grants from the NIH.
Bradley Denker, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine,
Clinical Chief of the Division of Nephrology
Brad Denker graduated from State University of New York Medical School in Syracuse, NY, and completed his internal medicine residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He did a one-year Fellowship in Hematology at Johns Hopkins in the laboratory of Dr. Peter Agre and was the lead author on the paper that ultimately led to the discovery of Aquaporins (2003 Nobel Prize). He did his Nephrology Fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He moved to BIDMC in 2011, and he supervised a basic research laboratory in the Renal Division until 2012 where his work focused on cell signaling in epithelial cells and the role of G proteins in Acute Kidney Injury and Polycystic Kidney Disease. He is the past president of the Medical Advisory Board for the National Kidney Foundation serving New England and has authored numerous chapters and textbooks on kidney disease, including the Renal Pathophysiology, The Essentials with Dr. Helmut Rennke. He lectures regularly at internal medicine and nephrology CME courses on chronic kidney disease, fluids and electrolytes, acute renal failure and hypertension. In addition to his clinical and administrative duties at BIDMC, he also serves as the Chief of Nephrology and the Associate Chief of Medical Specialties at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates (Atrius), where he continues to study how electronic medical records are used to improve recognition and management of chronic kidney disease as well as the development of new care delivery models to improve quality and reduce costs in the dialysis patient population.
Stewart H. Lecker MD, PhD, FASN
Assistant Professor of Medicine,
Fellowship Program Director
Stewart Lecker Is a graduate of UCLA School of Medicine, completing his internal medicine residency at UCLA before relocating to Beth Israel Hospital for his nephrology training in 1995. He is the current director of the ACGME-accredited nephrology fellowship program at BIDMC and has served in this role since 2005. He is a leader in the nephrology education community serving on a number of committees and subcommittees at the American Society of Nephrology. His research has centered around nutrition in chronic and end-stage kidney disease, specifically on the molecular mechanisms of muscle wasting in these settings. He is passionate about education, with roles as a Core Renal Faculty at Harvard Medical School and Module Leader at the ASN TREKS course at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratories in Maine in addition to his work with our nephrology fellows and internal medicine trainees.
Jeffrey H. William, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine,
Fellowship Program Associate Director
Jeff William graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and received his MD from Tufts University School of Medicine. He completed his residency training at BIDMC as a member of the Clinician Educator Track where he developed and published online modules in high-yield clinical nephrology. After completing his nephrology fellowship at BIDMC, he went on to graduate from the Medical Education Research Fellowship in The Academy at Harvard Medical School. He has been recognized by the BIDMC housestaff with teaching awards at the conclusion of both his residency and fellowship, including the 2013 Lowell McGee Resident Teaching Award and the 2014 Fellow Teaching Award. His research and educational endeavors cover a wide variety of disciplines in education and nephrology, including real-time feedback and hypomagnesemia. He currently serves as the associate firm chief of the Tullis Firm in the BIDMC Medicine Residency program as well as Core Faculty at HMS in the pre-clinical integrated physiology courses, "Homeostasis I" and "II." He was a nominee for the 2017 S. Robert Stone Award for Excellence in Clinical Teaching at BIDMC and awarded the 2017 Donald O'Hara Faculty Prize for Excellence in Teaching in pre-clinical coursework at HMS.
Martha Pavlakis, MD, FASN, FASTAssociate Professor of Medicine,
Medical Director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation
Martha Pavlakis graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo before completing her residency at Tufts Medical Center. She did her renal fellowship at BIDMC and has been a member of the Renal Transplant team ever since. She takes the transplant education at BIDMC for renal fellows very seriously and provides both inpatient and clinic exposure throughout the year on both the inpatient Transplant (“Epstein-Trey”) service and outpatient clinics. She has directed the BIDMC one-year AST transplant fellowship since 2001. She is active in the American Society of Transplantation where she serves as the chair of the Education Committee and is active in a number of the Communities of Practice (COP) including the Women's Health COP, the Kidney Pancreas COP, the Live Donor COP and the ID COP. She is also a leader in the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) and is currently the Vice Chair of the UNOS Kidney Committee, actively working on a new allocation algorithm to address geographic disparity in deceased donor kidney transplantation. She is co-chair of the BIDMC Transplant Institute Quality Assurance and Process Improvement Committee.
Clinical and Research Faculty
Seth Leo Alper, MD, PhD
Professor of Medicine
Seth Alper is a graduate of Haverford College, completing his MD and PhD at Yale University. He trained in Internal Medicine and Nephrology at the Beth Israel Hospital, with further postdoctoral work at MIT. He is also an Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. His research addresses the molecular physiology, pharmacology, biochemistry and genetics of cell membrane ion and solute transport and its dysfunctions and mutations that lead to human disease. The Alper laboratory has studied renal tubular acidification mechanisms and cell pH regulation mechanisms with focus on chloride/bicarbonate exchangers of the SLC4 and SLC26 families, as well as hereditary hemolytic anemias and erythrocyte volume regulation with focus on SLC4A1, SLC12 cation-Cl cotransporters, KCNN K(Ca) channels and PIEZO1 mechanosensitive cation channels. The lab has also studied the roles of polycystins and K channels in cyst enlargement in ADPKD. More recently we have collaborated in studies of APOL1 structure and membrane permeabilization associated with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, in studies of peritoneal inflammation and fibrosis associated with peritoneal dialysis and in studies of the pathogenesis of autosomal dominant tubulointerstitial kidney disease ADTKD-MUC1.
Instructor in Medicine
Rhea Bhargava grew up in the northern part of India and graduated from the Armed Forces Medical College. After finishing her clinical rotations at the University of Colorado, she went on to finish her internal medicine residency at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Her interest in nephrology developed in medical school after being introduced to the “fish and philosopher” by one of her physiology professors. During fellowship she has become more inclined towards renal immunology and the impact of the immune system on kidney cells in autoimmune versus alloimmune diseases in the lab of Dr. George Tsokos (Rheumatology). She is a foodie and likes trying different cuisines from around the world (definitely the best part about traveling). She loves going to basketball games and exploring New England. In her own words, “BIDMC is the perfect place to train—you get a wide exposure of pathology and a good balance of supervision and autonomy. The people are definitely the best part though!”
Robert S. Brown, MD, FACP
Associate Professor of Medicine
Bob Brown serves as the Associate Chief for Academic Affairs in the Nephrology Division at BIDMC. He was formerly Clinical Chief of Nephrology for over 40 years and a former Medicine Firm Chief for 12 years. His current areas of interest are: (1) clinical research to improve vascular access and decrease bloodstream infections in hemodialysis patients, optimize blood pressure in CKD patients, and as principal investigator of two studies (assessing kidney fibrosis non-invasively with magnetic resonance elastography and assessing kidney transplant hypertrophy); (2) quality improvement, serving as the Director of Regulatory Affairs for the Department of Medicine and Associate Medical Director of the DaVita Brookline Dialysis Center, and (3) educational activities to innovate teaching with two electronic smartphone/iPad apps using interactive tools and algorithms and a pocket textbook for the bedside care and teaching of nephrology and of acid-base and electrolyte disorders. He has formed and leads a nonprofit tax-exempt organization (TORCH, The Organization for Renal Care in Haiti) to bring preventive and therapeutic care of kidney disease, including dialysis and transplantation, to patients in Haiti who are now dying without treatment. He has received the ACGME Parker J. Palmer “Courage to Teach” Award, has just completed two years as the Chairman of the Board of the IPRO End Stage Renal Disease Network of New England, and is a member of many professional medical societies, including Alpha Omega Alpha and the Gold Humanism Honor Society of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation.
Robert A. Cohen MD, MSc
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Rob Cohen completed medical school at Temple University School of Medicine and residency at the University of Michigan. He did his renal fellowship at BIDMC and is now a general nephrologist with a special interest in the intersection of nephrology and palliative care. He is particularly focused on how we talk to our patients about difficult subjects such as worsening kidney function, failing transplants, care goals when clinical status is worsening and dialysis withdrawal. He developed a novel communication skills curriculum to help fellows learn skills for enhanced conversations about challenging conversations and end-of-life issues with patients, emphasizing skills practices with simulated patients. He also co-developed an on-line curriculum to teach communication skills to nephrology fellows. He directs the education component of our division and leads the medical student elective rotation at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
John Danziger, MD, MPhil
Assistant Professor of Medicine
John Danziger graduated from University of Texas Southwestern and completed his internship and residency training there before doing his fellowship training at BIDMC. Caring for a large chronic kidney disease patient population, he is an active clinician and educator, both in the inpatient and ambulatory setting. His interests include end-stage renal disease, particularly home therapies, and is the medical director of the NxStage South dialysis unit. His clinical research interests center primarily on big data analysis, particularly critical illness nephrology.
Bradley Denker, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine,
Clinical Chief of the Division of Nephrology
Brad Denker graduated from State University of New York Medical School in Syracuse, NY, and completed his internal medicine residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He did a one-year Fellowship in Hematology at Johns Hopkins in the laboratory of Dr. Peter Agre and was the lead author on the paper that ultimately led to the discovery of Aquaporins (2003 Nobel Prize). He did his Nephrology Fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He moved to BIDMC in 2011, and he supervised a basic research laboratory in the Renal Division until 2012 where his work focused on cell signaling in epithelial cells and the role of G proteins in Acute Kidney Injury and Polycystic Kidney Disease. He is the past president of the Medical Advisory Board for the National Kidney Foundation serving New England and has authored numerous chapters and textbooks on kidney disease, including the Renal Pathophysiology, The Essentials with Dr. Helmut Rennke. He lectures regularly at internal medicine and nephrology CME courses on chronic kidney disease, fluids and electrolytes, acute renal failure and hypertension. In addition to his clinical and administrative duties at BIDMC, he also serves as the Chief of Nephrology and the Associate Chief of Medical Specialties at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates (Atrius), where he continues to study how electronic medical records are used to improve recognition and management of chronic kidney disease as well as the development of new care delivery models to improve quality and reduce costs in the dialysis patient population.
Lisa Dumouchel, NP
Ms. Dumouchel graduated from Simmons College, Master of Science in Nursing and is a board certified Adult Nurse Practitioner. She has over 25 years of nephrology nursing experience in caring and treating patients on inpatient services and outpatient clinics. She has expertise in peritoneal dialysis, chronic kidney disease management and treatment modalities for end stage kidney disease. She is a member of the American Nephrology Nurses Association (ANNA) and has traveled to Port Au Prince, Haiti to teach dialysis education and training. Ms. Dumouchel develops, teaches and shares best practices and patient management strategies with physicians, nurses and health professionals who care for patients with Chronic Kidney Disease.
David Friedman, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
David Friedman’s laboratory studies the genetics of chronic kidney disease, including how genetic variants in the APOL1 gene cause high rates of kidney failure in African Americans. His laboratory is also investigating a kidney failure epidemic in Central America called Mesoamerican Nephropathy where thousands of young men who work in agriculture and other manual labor jobs are dying of kidney failure, and Dr. Friedman’s lab is particularly interested in the interaction between genes and environment in causing kidney dysfunction.
Warren Hill, PhD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Warren Hill completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Otago in New Zealand, and he graduated with his doctorate from the University of Adelaide in Australia. Both his Ph.D. and early post-doctoral work at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania focused on the pathophysiology of cystic fibrosis. His current research focuses on benign urological diseases such as overactivity, frequency, urgency and incontinence. He and others in his team seek to define the genetic underpinnings of these common and highly bothersome lower urinary tract symptoms.
Melanie Hoenig, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Melanie Hoenig has found her niche at BIDMC in the renal division, her family away from home. She wears several hats as a nephrology educator. She has a continuity clinic with a nephrology fellow that is a general nephrology clinic, though her clinical interests are in transition to adult care for young individuals with renal disease as well as kidney disorders in the context of HIV infection. She also ran the renal pathophysiology course at HMS for more than a dozen years and the renal section of the physiology course for 2 years. She was co-chair of the Steering Committee to reform the pre-clerkship curriculum at Harvard Medical School and is now the course director for a course called "Homeostasis 2," which includes physiology and pathophysiology of the renal, endocrine and gastrointestinal systems. She has been very involved with the American society of Nephrology and helped develop the Kidney Self-Assessment program (KSAP) and was the editor for six years. She is also the renal section editor for Knowledge Plus, a board review and MOC product from the NEJM.
Philip Kemp, MDInstructor in Medicine
Philip is originally from St. Louis, MO and obtained his degree in biomedical engineering at Columbia University in New York City before returning to St. Louis for medical school at Washington University. He then came to Boston to complete Internal Medicine residency and nephrology fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. In 2019 he completed a master’s degree in Healthcare Quality and Safety at Harvard Medical School.
He joined the Beth Israel Deaconess nephrology faculty in 2019 with a focus on general nephrology clinical care and healthcare safety and quality improvement. He enjoys working in an academic environment alongside medical students, residents and fellows and in 2020 will assist in teaching nephrology content in the Homeostasis course at Harvard Medical School.
Joseph Kupferman, MD
Instructor in Medicine
Joseph Kupferman was born and raised in Mexico City. He came to the United States to attend Brandeis University where he majored in biology and biochemistry. After graduating, he attended Tufts Medical School and completed his internal medicine residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He first came to BIDMC in 2012 for his renal fellowship where he completed both clinical and research fellowships, where he received the Fellow Teaching Award at the conclusion of his first year. He joined the nephrology faculty in 2016 and works in the laboratory of Dr. David Friedman studying Mesoamerican Nephropathy, a form of chronic kidney disease of unknown cause in Central America.
Stewart H. Lecker MD, PhD, FASN
Assistant Professor of Medicine,
Fellowship Program Director
Stewart Lecker Is a graduate of UCLA School of Medicine, completing his internal medicine residency at UCLA before relocating to Beth Israel Hospital for his nephrology training in 1995. He is the current director of the ACGME-accredited nephrology fellowship program at BIDMC and has served in this role since 2005. He is a leader in the nephrology education community serving on a number of committees and subcommittees at the American Society of Nephrology. His research has centered around nutrition in chronic and end-stage kidney disease, specifically on the molecular mechanisms of muscle wasting in these settings. He is passionate about education, with roles as a Core Renal Faculty at Harvard Medical School and Module Leader at the ASN TREKS course at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratories in Maine in addition to his work with our nephrology fellows and internal medicine trainees.
Samer Nasser, MD
Lecturer on Medicine
Samer Nasser graduated from the American University of Beirut and completed his residency and fellowship at SUNY Upstate Medical University. He then joined a private practice in Western Pennsylvania prior to joining the BIDMC team in 2016. His current practice is a diverse mix of outpatient nephrology at Atrius Health in Quincy, MA, BIDH-Milton, BIDMC, and dialysis coverage in Quincy and Weymouth. He also sees patients on the inpatient services in BIDH-Milton and BIDMC. Despite the busy schedule and structuring of the practice in the South region, he does find time for academic activities. His research interests and focus are mainly clinical and include nephrolithiasis prevention and peritoneal dialysis. His greatest reward at BIDMC is working with medical students, residents and fellows in the clinic and on rotations as well as working with a very seasoned faculty.
Samir M. Parikh, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Samir Parikh graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a degree in chemistry and received the Founder’s Medal from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He completed post-graduate medical training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. He has served as principal investigator on research grants from the National Institutes of Health, American Society of Nephrology, American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association. Trainees from Dr. Parikh's group have joined the faculty at leading universities. Dr. Parikh's mentorship and teaching have been recognized with several teaching awards from Harvard Medical School and BIDMC. His research is focused on molecular mechanisms underlying acute kidney injury and sepsis and he has been recognized with the induction into the American Society for Clinical Investigation and receipt of NIH’s Outstanding Investigator Award from NHLBI.
The Parikh laboratory has described Angiopoietin-2 as a candidate marker and mediator of vascular destabilization and adverse outcomes in human sepsis and has also shown that inhibition of Angiopoietin-2 ameliorates microvascular injury and kidney injury in experimental sepsis. In more recent studies, they have explored the molecular basis of tubular epithelial pathology, implicating mitochondrial biogenesis as a novel pathway for resistance to ischemic, inflammatory and toxic stressors. Ongoing studies are examining the intersection of epithelial and endothelial signaling in the kidney and exploring mechanistic links among aging, acute organ dysfunction and chronic deteriorations in organ health.
Martin Pollak, MD
Professor of Medicine,
Chief of the Division of Nephrology
Martin Pollak attended medical school at New York University School of Medicine and completed both his internship and residency at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Dr. Pollak went on to complete his renal fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He was an associate professor in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Harvard before being named to his current position at BIDMC. The Pollak laboratory studies the genetic basis of kidney disease and is often credited with the discovery of the increased risk of kidney disease in those with African ancestry who carry the high risk ApoL1 genotype. A major focus of his current studies is understanding the biology of APOL1-associated kidney disease. His work is supported by numerous grants from the NIH.
Cristian Riella, MDInstructor in Medicine
Cristian Riella is a graduate from the BIDMC clinical and research Nephrology programs. Dr. Riella completed his medical education from Universidade Federal do Parana, Brazil in 2010 and completed his internal medicine residency at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine. After completing his clinical training, Dr. Riella started his research training in Dr. David Friedman’s laboratory studying transcriptional regulation of APOL1. In 2019, Dr. Riella joined our Faculty as an Instructor in Medicine. He currently investigates the interaction between RNA editing and the innate immune system affecting APOL1 regulation. Dr. Riella is also interested in the worldwide impact of APOL1 and undertakes studies of South American dialysis patients with African ancestry. He is an active educator, serving as a preceptor in the Harvard Medical School’s “Practice of Medicine” course. He is a 2019 recipient of the NKF Young Investigator Grant.
Johannes Schlondorff, MD, PhD Assistant Professor of Medicine
"Hanno" Schlondorff received his MD and PhD at Weil Cornell Medical College and the Sloan-Kettering Institute, completing his internal medicine training at Columbia-Presbyterian and his nephrology fellowship at MGH-Brigham and Women's Hospital. He relocated to BIDMC in 2010 where he has continued to pursue his interest in glomerular disease. His research lab is focused on understanding the mechanism whereby TRPC6 mutations cause FSGS, using a variety of animal and cell-based studies, and his lab is also exploring the role of the podocyte "glycome" in maintaining the glomerular filtration barrier. He continues to collaborate closely with Dr. Martin Pollak in studying the role of other FSGS genes. Hanno complements his research efforts with both outpatient and inpatient clinical work, with a particular interest in the management of glomerular disease. He enjoys interacting with the clinical fellows in clinic and on service, as well as with the greater nephrology community through the GlomCon project.
Theodore I. Steinman, MD Professor of Medicine
Dr. Steinman primarily focuses his clinical research
investigation in the areas of polycystic kidney disease, treating the anemia associated with chronic kidney disease, biomarker/kidney pathology correlation in any patient undergoing a native or kidney transplant biopsy and stem cell technology in organoid development. Five research grants support the above endeavors, and it is his aim to involve every new fellow in a clinical research project being conducted in the Renal Division, from the beginning of their fellowship, no matter what their focus beyond the first clinical year. His CV documents the approximately 200 peer reviewed publications, 25 book chapters, 186 abstracts, 190 proceedings. A book on polycystic kidney disease is in print, developed and written with two former fellows in our division. On a Boston-wide scale, Dr. Steinman founded and still coordinates Interhospital Renal Rounds, an ongoing collaborative educational initiative that benefits both nephrology faculty and fellows from every program in the city.
Jeffrey H. William, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine,
Fellowship Program Associate Director
Jeff William graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and received his MD from Tufts University School of Medicine. He completed his residency training at BIDMC as a member of the Clinician Educator Track where he developed and published online modules in high-yield clinical nephrology. After completing his nephrology fellowship at BIDMC, he went on to graduate from the Medical Education Research Fellowship in The Academy at Harvard Medical School. He has been recognized by the BIDMC housestaff with teaching awards at the conclusion of both his residency and fellowship, including the 2013 Lowell McGee Resident Teaching Award and the 2014 Fellow Teaching Award. His research and educational endeavors cover a wide variety of disciplines in education and nephrology, including real-time feedback and hypomagnesemia. He currently serves as the associate firm chief of the Tullis Firm in the BIDMC Medicine Residency program as well as Core Faculty at HMS in the pre-clinical integrated physiology courses, "Homeostasis I" and "II." He was a nominee for the 2017 S. Robert Stone Award for Excellence in Clinical Teaching at BIDMC and awarded the 2017 Donald O'Hara Faculty Prize for Excellence in Teaching in pre-clinical coursework at HMS.
Mark L. Zeidel, MD
Herrman L. Blumgart Professor of Medicine and Physician-in-Chief, BIDMC
Mark Zeidel’s research focuses on homeostasis and its control. He defined the role of atrial peptides and other natriuretic substances in renal salt excretion, characterized the biophysical function of water channels and barrier membranes, and advanced urothelial cell biology. His current work focuses on neural control of somatic function, focusing on the control of bladder filling and voiding and, ultimately, of renal function. His innovations in physiology teaching include an animated textbook, highly novel and nationally prominent week-long courses at the Mount Desert Island Biology Laboratories and a series of review articles in his field’s major clinical journal. He has pioneered the provision of highly reliable, cost-effective care, both at the University of Pittsburgh and BIDMC and has helped make quality care a major priority of national organizations in academic medicine.
Transplant Faculty
Amtul Aala, MDInstructor in Medicine
Amtul Aala graduated from Rawalpindi Medical College. She completed her residency at Mount Sinai- Englewood Program. After completing her Nephrology fellowship at Brown University, she did a one-year fellowship in Transplant Nephrology at the Johns Hopkins and joined BIDMC as a Transplant Nephrologist in 2018. She is directly involved in clinical care of transplant patients, which includes ambulatory activity and inpatient attending clinical work. She has keen interest in helping increase the interest of young trainees in the field of Nephrology and Transplant. She is involved with teaching and direct supervision of the American Society of Transplantation fellow, renal fellows and internal medicine residents during inpatient rotations and outpatient clinics. One of her areas of interest is to look for biomarkers of kidney transplant rejection. She is currently serving as the principal investigator of an IRB study to investigate the role of ddCF-DNA as a non-invasive marker of rejection. Her other area of interest is quality improvement in live donation, and she is the physician lead for the Live Donor Task Force at BIDMC Transplant Institute. She is also active in the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) and New England BK consortium.
A graduate of Maulana Azad Medical College, Delhi, Nikhil did his internal medical residency from New York Medical College (Valhalla, NY) and then worked as a hospitalist and Assistant Professor in Medicine at University of Florida (Gainesville) before joining Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for his nephrology fellowship. He has focused his training in the fields of transplant and interventional nephrology. Passionate about advancing the teaching and practice of nephrology, Nikhil has worked with medical educators across the country to build innovative tools in field of nephrology education, especially web-based. He received the 2017 ASN award for innovation and medical education on behalf of GlomCon. Nikhil has co-authored multiple book chapters and review articles in the field. He is also working on incorporating point-of-care ultrasound in nephrology practice and developing interventional nephrology as part of academic nephrology training. Nikhil is involved in multiple clinical research projects with an intention to build an expertise in clinical trials.
Francesca Cardarelli, MD
Instructor in Medicine
Francesca Cardarelli is a transplant nephrologist directly involved in clinical care of transplant patients, which includes ambulatory activity and inpatient attending clinical work. She directly supervises the American Society of Transplantation fellow, renal fellows and internal medicine residents during inpatient rotations (“Epstein-Trey” service) and outpatient clinics. Her main research interest is kidney transplant antibody-mediated rejection. She is one of the Transplant Center experts in diagnosis and treatment of antibody-mediated rejection, which is an actively evolving area of research. She is also the Medical Director of the Transplant Onco-Nephrology Program at BIDMC, which aims to create a collaboration between different specialty professionals in order to provide the best possible care of kidney transplant patients who develop malignancy after transplantation. She is collaborating with other medical centers in New England to start the foundation of a regional kidney pair donation program. She wrote a Protocol to harmonize these Centers kidney pair exchange activity in order to create a New England regional transplant exchange. She is one of the founders of the New England BK consortium, which includes the leadership of the New England transplant centers and has the aim to optimize BK virus management and promote research in this field of transplantation.
Eliyahu Khankin, MD, FASN
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Eli Khankin is a member of the Transplant Nephrology team and an NIH-funded physician-scientist investigating the influence of anti-angiogenic proteins elevated in preeclampsia on endothelial function and damage of the target organs associated with it. In particular, his efforts are focused on exploring the long-term influence of sFlt1 and sEng on vascular endothelial compartment and evaluation of the injury patterns induced along with an exploration of mechanisms of the injury and possible ways of treating and preventing this toxic effect. An additional focus of research is the elucidation of mechanisms of insulin resistance in preeclampsia and hypercholesterolemia associated with it. His laboratory uses robust animal modeling including targeted vector delivery systems and advance intravital imaging techniques. He also uses human sample collection and banking for exploratory and confirmational studies.
Martha Pavlakis, MD FASN, FAST
Associate Professor of Medicine,
Medical Director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation
Martha Pavlakis graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo before completing her residency at Tufts Medical Center. She did her renal fellowship at BIDMC and has been a member of the Renal Transplant team ever since. She takes the transplant education at BIDMC for renal fellows very seriously and provides both inpatient and clinic exposure throughout the year on both the inpatient Transplant (“Epstein-Trey”) service and outpatient clinics. She has directed the BIDMC one-year AST transplant fellowship since 2001. She is active in the American Society of Transplantation where she serves as the chair of the Education Committee and is active in a number of the Communities of Practice (COP) including the Women's Health COP, the Kidney Pancreas COP, the Live Donor COP and the ID COP. She is also a leader in the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) and is currently the Vice Chair of the UNOS Kidney Committee, actively working on a new allocation algorithm to address geographic disparity in deceased donor kidney transplantation. She is co-chair of the BIDMC Transplant Institute Quality Assurance and Process Improvement Committee.
Joslin Diabetes Center Faculty
Sylvia E. Rosas, MD, MSCE
Associate Professor of Medicine
Sylvia Rosas completed her nephrology and epidemiology training at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the Director of the Latino Kidney Clinic at Joslin Diabetes Center and the past Chair of the Minority Affairs Committee at UNOS/OPTN. Her primary research focus is on the epidemiology of metabolic and cardiovascular disease complications in patients with chronic kidney disease, particularly in diabetic kidney disease. She is a recruitment center PI for several NIDDK funded studies such as the ApoL1 long-term transplant outcome (APOLLO) study as well as the Kidney Precision Medicine Program. She is an investigator for the NIDDK international trial Prevention of Early Renal Loss (PERL) study to determine if allopurinol slows progression of kidney disease. She is also involved in multiple trials to slow progression of diabetic kidney disease. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NHLBI and NIDDK), American Heart Association and the Veteran’s Health Administration.
Robert C. Stanton, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Chief of the Kidney and Hypertension Section at the Joslin Diabetes Center
Mark E. Williams, MD, FACP, FASN
Associate Professor of Medicine
Mark Williams is a national expert on diabetic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease. He serves as Director of Dialysis Operations at BIDMC and provides outpatient care to patients with diabetic kidney disease at the Joslin Diabetes Center. He attends regularly on both the dialysis and consult services. His service to the community has involved leadership roles in the National Kidney Foundation, including President of the NKF Affiliate of New England. He also serves as the Medical Director of the Brookline DaVita dialysis unit.
Renal Pathology Faculty
Yael K. Heher, MDAssistant Professor of Pathology
Seymour Rosen, MDProfessor of Pathology
Dr. Seymour Rosen attended medical school and did his pathology residency at the University of Illinois, working with the Pirani/Kark group that was instrumental in the development and application of the renal biopsy. He then spent three years at the Walter Reed Army Institute of research and subsequently came to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. His initial studies here were with Philip Steinmetz analyzing cellular mechanisms of proton transport. A few years later, his collaborators included Frank Epstein, Mayer Brezis and Samuel Heyman and resulted in numerous publications in the field of AKI using multiple models particularly related to medullary hypoxic injury. His work in this area continued with collaborators in Berlin relating to a hypoxia inducible factor1 alpha. His other interests relate to renal growth and development. He was appointed Professor of Pathology Harvard Medical School 1994.
Isaac Ely Stillman, MDAssociate Professor of Pathology
Isaac Ely Stillman, MD, is a staff pathologist in the Department of Pathology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, where he serves as Medical Director of the Immunofluorescence and Diagnostic Electron Microscopy Laboratories. Isaac also maintains an appointment in the Renal Division of the Department of Medicine, and serves as a consultant in nephropathology at Children’s Hospital, Boston. A graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, he is currently an Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. Following an internship in internal medicine he arrived at the then Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, where he completed a residency/chief residency, and fellowship in Anatomic and Surgical Pathology. He is an enthusiastic teacher in both medical undergraduate and graduate settings. His clinical and research interests include thrombotic microangiopathy (especially preeclampsia), diabetes, lupus, acute kidney injury, nephrotoxins, angiogenesis and the endothelium and mitochondrial dysfunction. His laboratory maintains avid collaborations in both experimental and translational research, which have culminated in more than 80 print publications. He is also excited about the potential of electronic communication, and blogs in particular, to contribute to teaching, learning and the advancement of medical knowledge.
