International workshop on developmental nephrology

Following his clinical training in Nephrology, Dr. Cherney completed his PhD in human renal physiology at the Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto in 2008. He is currently Professor in the Department of Medicine, University of Toronto and a Clinician Scientist at the University Health Network and Mount Sinai Hospitals, where he is director of the Renal Physiology Laboratory. He is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Kidney Foundation of Canada, the JDRF, the Heart and Stroke Richard Lewar Centre of Excellence, and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and is the recipient of a 5-year CIHR-KFOC Team Grant in diabetes complications (2022-2027). He is also supported by a Department of Medicine, University of Toronto Merit Award.

Dr. Cherney’s research program focuses on physiological factors that initiate renal disease in patients with diabetes, such as renal hyperfiltration and inflammation, and the role of the cardiorenal axis in diabetes. His research group is also involved in early and late phase clinical trials in the cardiorenal-metabolic field, including several primary renal outcome trials in patients with and without diabetes.

Dr. Cherney’s research program is closely aligned with his integrated and multidisciplinary cardiac-renal-endocrine clinic at the University Health Network, which maintains a strong emphasis on the prevention of diabetic nephropathy and cardiovascular disease.

In 2019, he received the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) Distinguished Researcher Award for outstanding contributions to nephrology. In 2019 he also received the Diabetes Canada/CIHR – Institute of Nutrition Diabetes and Metabolism (INMD) Young Scientist Award.

Dr. Maria Cristina Nostro is a Senior Scientist at the McEwen Stem Cell Institute at UHN, Associate Professor at the University of Toronto and holds the Harry Rosen Chair in Diabetes Regenerative Medicine Research.

Dr. Nostro completed her undergraduate degree in Biology at the University of Florence in 2000 and then received a Ph.D. in Biomolecular Sciences from The University of Manchester in 2004. The same year, she joined Dr. Gordon Keller’s laboratory at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and in 2007 she relocated to Toronto. In 2012, she started her independent career at UHN. Her research is focused on the generation of functional pancreatic islet-like cells from human embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells.

Her group has defined critical pathways leading to the efficient generation of stem cell-derived pancreatic progenitors in vitro and, through the use of a proteomics approach, identified a specific marker that allows the purification of these β cell progenitors. Since 2015, Dr. Nostro has been leading a multi-investigator team aimed at developing novel transplantation approaches for Type 1 Diabetes therapy.

Nahum Sonenberg is an Israeli Canadian microbiologist and biochemist. He is a James McGill professor of biochemistry at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was an HHMI international research scholar from 1997 to 2011 and is now a senior international research scholar.

He is best known for his seminal contributions to our understanding of translation, and notable for the discovery of the mRNA 5′ cap-binding protein, eIF4E, the rate-limiting component of the eukaryotic translation apparatus.