RESEARCH AWARDS
MARILYN FARQUHAR AWARD WINNERS
2025: Jochen Reiser
Jochen Reiser is a prolific scientist and leader in podocyte research, boasting an H-index of 74 and over 28,000 citations in journals such as Nature Medicine and the NEJM. His foundational achievements include the development of the first conditional podocyte cell lines, which revolutionized in vitro kidney research, and the discovery of the role of TRPC6 channels and cathepsin L in glomerular disease. His extensive work on suPAR (soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor) established it as a circulating factor in FSGS and a major risk factor for chronic and acute kidney injury. Having previously served in leadership roles at Harvard, the University of Miami, and Rush University, Dr. Reiser is currently the President of the University of Texas Medical Branch and CEO of UTMB Health System. He has mentored more than 70 scientists who now lead independent research programs.
2023: Tobias Huber
Tobias B. Huber is Chair of the Center of Internal Medicine and Director of the Third Department of Medicine (Nephrology, Rheumatology, Endocrinology and Transplantation) at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE). He is internationally recognized for discovering signaling pathways relevant for kidney development, filtration, maintenance, and disease. He is one of the most cited podocyte researchers, has authored over 275 articles, and has received numerous honors including the Donald W. Seldin Young Investigator Award of the American Society of Nephrology. Dr. Huber is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina). He is the inaugural president of the International Society for Glomerular Disease, and the founding Director of the Hamburg Center for Kidney Health.
2021: Stuart Shankland
Stuart J. Shankland is the Belding H. Scribner Endowed Chair of Medicine; Professor of Medicine, Nephrology; and former Head, Division of Nephrology at the University of Washington. Dr. Shankland earned his MD at the University of Cape Town, followed by residency and fellowship training at the University of Toronto. His wide-ranging work includes research on aging and the kidney, cell cycle proteins in kidney disease, the development of a glomerulus on a chip, drug delivery to the kidney through nanobody and nanoparticle strategies, glomerular regeneration, mechanisms of proteinuria, molecular and cellular events in diabetic kidney disease, parietal epithelial cells, pericytes, and podocyte biology in normal and diseased states.
2018: Peter Mundel
Peter Mundel is known for both his pioneering research on podocyte physiology and his dedication to translational work in precision medicine. He holds an MD from the University of Heidelberg, where he completed his postdoctoral training with Wilhelm Kriz. His highly cited research has contributed to the current understanding of normal and diseased podocyte development, the roles of the actin cytoskeleton, podocin and nephrin proteins, and additional pathways affecting podocyte function and structure. After a twenty-year academic career in Germany and the United States, Dr. Mundel pivoted in 2015 to focus on translational ventures developing next-generation therapies for kidney and other diseases. He is a past recipient of the American Society of Nephrology Young Investigator Award and the Top 10 Clinical Research Outstanding Achievement Award from the Clinical Research Forum.
2016: David Salant
David Salant is Professor of Medicine and Vice-Chair for Research at Boston University. He holds a medical degree from the University of the Witwatersrand and completed his clinical training at Johannesburg Hospital. He received further research training at Boston University with Dr. William G. Couser and joined BU’s nephrology faculty in 1979. Dr. Salant’s research primarily explores the immune basis for glomerular diseases and the mechanisms of podocyte injury. He was among the first to identify podocytes as the primary target of injury in antibody-mediated glomerular diseases, and to posit anti-nephrin autoantibodies as a mechanism for glomerular disease. In a landmark New England Journal of Medicine paper in 2009, Dr. Salant and colleagues described their discovery of the role of the anti-PLA2R antigen in membranous nephropathy. Dr. Salant is a past chair of the ABIM Nephrology Board.
2014: Dontscho Kerjaschki
Dontscho Kerjaschki is emeritus Head of the Medical University of Vienna's Department of Pathology. During his long scientific career, he has made significant contributions to the understanding of glomerular pathophysiology and its underlying functional mechanisms, including membranous glomerulonephritis, pauci-immune crescentic glomerulonephritis, and the molecular pathology of podocytes and glomeruli more generally. Dr. Kerjaschki received his medical training in Vienna and further studied cell biology with the Nobel prizewinner G.E. Palade at Yale. He has published more than 250 articles in leading journals and served for many years as European Associate Editor of the American Journal of Pathology. In 2015 he received the Homer W. Smith Award from the American Society of Nephrology, and in 2017 the Award for Outstanding Basic Science Contributions to Nephrology by the European Renal Association – European Dialysis and Transplant Association (ERA-EDTA).
2012: Martin Pollak
Martin Pollak is Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Division of Nephrology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. He is known for his research on the molecular and genetic basis of diseases of human glomerular function, in particular the role of variations in the APOL1 gene. His pioneering work in this area has catalyzed the modern understanding of the significance of APOL1 risk factors in individuals of recent African descent, as well as the translational efforts to address APOL1-mediated kidney disease with targeted therapeutics.
Dr. Pollak is a graduate of Princeton University and of New York University’s School of Medicine. He completed clinical training in Internal Medicine at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and in nephrology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, followed by postdoctoral research training in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School in the laboratory of Jon and Christine Seidman.
WILHELM KRIZ AWARD WINNERS
2025: Nicola Tomas
Nicola M. Tomas is a distinguished clinician-scientist recognized for his transformative contributions to the study of autoimmune kidney diseases. Dr. Tomas is an attending physician and scientist in the III. Department of Medicine, Nephrology, at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE). He gained international prominence as the lead author on the discovery of the THSD7A autoantigen in membranous glomerulonephritis (MGN), and has since expanded his research into the molecular mechanisms of autoantibody-mediated tissue injury and the role of the complement system. His recent high-impact work includes the clinical characterization of anti-nephrin autoantibodies in primary podocytopathies, bridging the gap between mechanistic preclinical studies and clinical investigation. Supported by prestigious grants from the European Research Council (ERC) and the Emmy Noether program, Dr. Tomas is currently developing novel, pathogenesis-based immune therapies designed to provide highly specific treatments for patients with glomerular diseases.
2023: Shreeram Akilesh
Shreeram Akilesh graduated as valedictorian of his class from Dartmouth College and then attended the School of Medicine of Washington University in St. Louis, where he earned MD and PhD degrees and performed his thesis work in the laboratory of Dr. Andrey Shaw. Following a residency in anatomic pathology at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Dr. Akilesh completed a fellowship in renal pathology at the University of Washington, Seattle with Dr. Charles Alpers, followed by post-doctoral fellowship training in epigenomics. In 2013, Dr. Akilesh joined the faculty at the University of Washington and has established a successful research program as an Associate Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology. As a practicing renal pathologist and researcher, Dr. Akilesh has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of the genetics of FSGS, the mechanisms of podocyte foot process effacement, the dissection of genome regulation of glomerular cells, and more recently spatial transcriptomics of human glomerular disease.
2012: Heon Yung Gee
Heon Yung Gee is Assistant Professor at the College of Medicine, Yonsei University in Seoul, Republic of Korea. Dr. Gee earned his M.D. degree in 2006 and underwent Ph.D. training with Dr. Min Goo Lee in the Department of Pharmacology at Yonsei University, studying intracellular trafficking of cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). Before returning to the Yonsei faculty, Dr. Gee joined Dr. Friedhelm Hildebrandt’s laboratory in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Michigan in 2011 for his postdoctoral research and moved to the Division of Nephrology at Boston Children’s Hospital with Dr. Hildebrandt in 2012. During his postdoctoral training, he concentrated on human genetic factors in kidney disease.