Tanika Kelly
University of Illinois Chicago, IL·Public Health & Epidemiology
Why do some people develop kidney failure, heart disease or dementia while others do not, and what molecular changes in the body link everyday risks to these outcomes? End stage kidney disease (ESKD), the point where the kidneys stop working, is a leading cause of death in the US.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Genetics
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
diabetic kidney disease
chronic kidney disease
end stage kidney disease
- Grants
- 3 known grants, through May 2028
What they work on
- Recruit 300 diverse adults with and without diabetic kidney disease and collect blood and environmental exposure data, such as metals and social conditions, every year for three years.
- Profile participants' blood with genomic, epigenomic, transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic assays, then link these molecular profiles to exposures, kidney tissue damage and each stage of diabetic kidney disease.
- Test whether CHIP, age-related mutations that expand blood stem cell clones, predicts kidney disease progression in 2,126 older CRIC participants, using whole exome sequencing.
- Determine whether CHIP raises the risk of heart and artery disease in chronic kidney disease patients, and explore its causes and gene-expression effects using repeated measures and RNA sequencing.
- Assess whether childhood cardiovascular risk factors predict epigenetic age acceleration, faster DNA methylation-based aging, in adults from the Bogalusa Heart Study.
- Test whether epigenetic age acceleration tracks 11-year cognitive decline and Alzheimer's-related brain changes seen on MRI and amyloid PET, and whether it links early heart risk to midlife brain health.
More about the research
Diabetes causes nearly 40% of it, and Black and Hispanic adults carry a heavier burden. Dementia, mostly from Alzheimer's disease, has no effective treatment. Across three projects, the work uses large groups of patients and research volunteers. It combines genetic, molecular and clinical data to find the biological pathways and early warning markers behind these diseases.
Why it matters
Patients with diabetes and chronic kidney disease, especially Black and Hispanic communities who face faster progression to kidney failure, could benefit from new biomarkers and better ways to spot who is at highest risk of kidney failure and heart disease. The work may point to molecular drug targets. Identifying childhood heart risk factors that come before accelerated biological aging could suggest prevention strategies to protect brain health and lower Alzheimer's risk.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Multi-Omics at the Intersections of Environment, Diabetes, and Kidney Disease: A Multi-Omics for Health and Disease Study Site
NIH · Sep 2023 – May 2028
Clonal Hematopoiesis of Indeterminate Potential in Chronic Kidney Disease Patients
NIH · Jul 2022 – Mar 2027
Early Life Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors, Epigenetic Age Acceleration, and Alzheimer's Disease Related Brain Health
NIH · Apr 2022 – Jan 2027
Closest labs
Yang Pan
University of Illinois Chicago, IL·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Test whether mitochondrial DNA copy number and heteroplasmy (mutation load), measured in blood at two midlife time points, predict cognitive decline in Bogalusa Heart Study participants, with validation in the TOPMed cohort.
Richard MacLehose
Tulane University of Louisiana, LA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Measure brain structure, brain function, cognition and blood-based markers related to Alzheimer's disease in adults aged 40–55 from the Bogalusa, NGHS and Princeton lipid cohorts.
Jeffrey Schelling
Case Western Reserve University, OH·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine whether FATP2, a fatty acid transporter in the kidney's proximal tubule, drives fat-induced cell death and progression of diabetic kidney disease, using mouse models.
The school
University of Illinois Chicago: 42 labs on PI Pages, $532M a year on research, 359 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.