Abstract

The kidney plays a central role in human metabolic homeostasis. Our research goal is to understand the fundamental mechanisms of kidney disease in order to develop novel therapies for renal failure. To this end, we integrate mass-spectrometry based proteome and metabolome data with physiological concepts to discover mechanisms determining kidney fate and prognosis. In my talk, I will highlight how omics-guided interventions can ameliorate kidney damage or enhance kidney disease modelling.  Particularly, I will present a global view on mechanistic interventions that can protect the kidneys and heart – demonstrating an increasing importance of the gut-kidney-heart axis in cardio-renal-metabolic health. 

Biosketch

Markus Rinschen studied Medicine at the University of Muenster, Germany (2004-2011), and received research training at the Laboratory of Kidney and Electrolyte Metabolism, NIH/NHLBI (2008-2009). He further trained in the II. Department of Internal Medicine, Dept of Nephrology, University of Cologne. He was a visiting investigator at the Department of Chemistry, Center for Metabolomics, Scripps Research (2018-2020). 

Since 2020, he is an Associate Professor at the Department of Biomedicine, and Aarhus Institute for Advanced Studies, AIAS in Aarhus, Denmark as well as the III. Department of Internal Medicine University Hospital Hamburg Eppendorf, Germany. He is a Novo Nordisk Foundation Young Investigator and has received several awards, for instance the Guyton Award for Integrative Medicine and Physiology by the American Physiological Society, the Carl-Ludwig Award from the German Nephrology Society, and the Du Bois Reymond award from the German Physiological Society. He also served as an associate editor of the Journal of the American Society for Nephrology (JASN) as well as Physiological Genomics (American Physiological Society).

The laboratory of kidney omics and metabolism investigates the molecular processes that lead to chronic kidney disease. One out of ten people suffer from chronic kidney disease, an unmet burden to individuals and societies. Common causes are hypertension, diabetes, or genetic or environmental factors. Our key hypothesis is that understanding of molecular tissue pathophysiology and metabolism provides new avenues to treat and intervene with progression of chronic kidney disease. To approach this, we use a wide array of metabolic, mass spectrometric and bioinformatics tools, and integrate and benchmark big data sets with physiological function. Our results have unraveled new approaches and omics-guided targets for kidney disease in mice and men, in particular in the area of glomerular kidney disease.