Peter Mundel, MD

Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY

2002 Kidney

Co-Investigator: Anne Davidson, MBBS

More than a third of people with lupus develop kidney disease that can lead to kidney failure. These individuals have inflammation and deposits of antibodies bound to other proteins at the glomerulus—the area of the kidney where filtration of the blood and urine formation takes place.

While treatment with drugs that suppress the immune response may reduce the inflammation and the amount of deposits, many people with lupus go on to develop scarring of the glomerulus, and kidney failure.

In his novel work, Dr. Mundel and colleagues set out to characterize the role of podocytes in lupus kidney disease, and the participation of a molecule called B7-1 in maintaining the normal structure of podocytes and their ability to carry out filtration.

Put another way, he and his team tested if B7-1 is a critical player in damaging podocytes, thereby inhibiting normal kidney function in lupus. Results may yield new methods for treating existing kidney disease in people with lupus.

Select publications:

Induction of B7-1 in podocytes is associated with nephrotic syndrome. Reiser J, von Gersdorff G, Loos M, Oh J, Asanuma K, Giardino L, Rastaldi MP, Calvaresi N, Watanabe H, Schwarz K, Faul C, Kretzler M, Davidson A, Sugimoto H, Kalluri R, Sharpe AH, Kreidberg JA, Mundel P. J Clin Invest. 2004 113(10):1390-7.

Ongoing funding:

In 2004, Dr. Mundel won a $1.750 million grant from the National Institutes of Health funding to continue the research that he began with his LRI Novel Research Grant.

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