Introduction

“The mission of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine is to provide the highest level of patient care, expand the frontiers of basic, clinical and drug discovery research in nephrology paired with a strong interest to deliver state-of-the-art training and education for the physician-scientist leaders of tomorrow.”

Jochen Reiser, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor of Medicine, Cell Biology and Anatomy

Chief, Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

Director Peggy and Harold Katz Family Drug Discovery Center

The Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine is part of the Department of Medicine and comprises clinical in and out-patient Services at the University of Miami Hospital, Jackson Memorial Hospital as well as the Miami Hospital of Veterans affairs.

The clinical program in the Nephrology Division includes transplantation, hemodialysis, chronic ambulatory peritoneal dialysis, continuous veno-venous hemodialysis and out-patient hemodialysis. A world-renowned interventional nephrology service performs all kind of vascular access procedures and maintains shunts and grafts with a comprehensive surveillance system. The in-patient services are complemented by a vigorous out-patient program that manages all types of renal diseases. Renal specialists manage patients with hypertension, inherited kidney diseases, kidney stones, nephritis and vasculitis, early renal failure, continuous ambulatory perintoneal dialysis and renal transplantation. A multidisciplinary end stage renal disease (ESRD) program staffed by members of the Nephrology Division, provides a comprehensive and cohesive quality care to all kidney disease patients from the earliest signs of renal impairment to vascular access care, transplantation and post transplantation management. In addition, through our  partnership with Davita, the Division operates four outpatient hemodialysis centers that serve the community with its dialysis needs. 

The Division features a Basic Research Institute- the Miami Institute of Renal Medicine, a cutting edge molecular research facility that houses the Peggy and Harold Katz Family Drug Discovery Center. Efforts are aimed to understand kidney diseases on a molecular level and to develop novel assays and compounds that can be used for the development of kidney-cell specific therapeutics. Members of the Miami Institute of Renal Medicine execute basic biological research in a variety of fields such as molecular and cellular biology of glomerular diseases, protein structure and function, cell adhesion, mammalian gene expression, signal transduction, metabolomic analyses, biocomputing and drug screening and discovery. Several model organisms are utilized including mice, drosophila and zebrafish. First-class Clinical Research is performed at the Clinical Nephrology Research Center of the Division that studies epidemiology, risk factors and molecular relations of markers and pathways in large cohorts of renal disease patients.

At present approximately 80 people, including 29 basic and clinical faculty and over 20 postdoctoral fellows and graduate students comprise the Unit. The renal fellowship program allows clinical Nephrology, clinical science Nephrology as well as Basic Science Nephrology pathways. The goal of the renal training program at the University of Miami is to produce outstanding academic nephrologists who are well prepared to become leaders in clinical and basic sciences at major medical centers throughout the world.