Kenneth Dunn
Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, IN·Physiology
Seeing how the kidney works means looking at its cells in place, in three dimensions and sometimes in a living animal. Advanced microscopy makes this possible, but the tools are hard to build, run and analyze.
- Fields
Physiology
Biomedical Engineering
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
kidney
renal physiology
intravital microscopy
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jun 2028
What they work on
- Develop a multi-scale, multi-resolution approach to imaging whole rodent and human kidneys, based on a new hybrid open-top lightsheet microscope that scans large cleared tissues with a thin sheet of light.
- Create automated image analysis methods to identify and characterize every cell of the kidney within its full three-dimensional organization.
- Develop methods that combine large-scale kidney imaging data with transcriptomic data, which measures which genes cells are using, for joint analyses.
- Provide expert multiphoton intravital microscopy services, which image cells inside living animals, for quantitative studies of kidney physiology and cell biology in mice and rats.
- Train investigators in intravital microscopy and image analysis so they can conduct live kidney imaging studies independently at their home institutions.
More about the research
These two linked grants, both part of the Indiana University O'Brien Center for Advanced Renal Microscopy, develop new kidney imaging technologies and give kidney researchers access to them.
Why it matters
Better imaging tools and wider access to them could help kidney researchers understand how healthy kidneys function and how kidney disease develops. Whole-organ 3D imaging of mouse and human kidneys, combined with gene-activity data, could reveal how cells change in disease. Training programs aim to spread live-animal kidney imaging methods to laboratories worldwide.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jonathan Liu
University of Washington, WA·Biomedical Engineering
Build a multi-resolution hybrid open-top light-sheet microscope using a non-orthogonal dual-objective (NODO) design to improve resolution, imaging depth and compatibility with tissue-clearing protocols and sample holders.
Paul Welling
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Physiology
Test whether regulated expression of the ROMK potassium channel in the DCT2 and connecting tubule segments controls body potassium balance, using mice in which ROMK can be switched off in specific cell types.
Kailin Mesa
Princeton University, NJ·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Identify the immune circuits that allow mouse digit tips to regenerate, using intravital two-photon microscopy, single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, and targeted pathway perturbations.
The school
Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis: 25 labs on PI Pages, $89M a year on research, 120 research doctorates a year.
More about Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis
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