About The CJKHD
Canadian Journal of Kidney Health and Disease, the official journal of the Canadian Society of Nephrology, is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal that encourages high quality submissions focused on clinical, translational and health services delivery research in the field of chronic kidney disease, dialysis, kidney transplantation and organ donation.
Our mandate is to promote and advocate for kidney health as it impacts national and international communities.
Rami
Al Batran
Rami Al Batran, PhD, BPharm
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Dr. Al Batran received his Bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from the Arab International University, Syria, in 2009. In 2014, he completed his PhD in cardiovascular pharmacology with Dr. Fouad Al Bayaty at the University Technology Mara, Malaysia. He then moved to Edmonton to train with Dr. John Ussher as a post-doctoral fellow at the Faculty of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Alberta. In 2020, Dr. Al Batran joined the Faculté de pharmacie at the Université de Montréal as an assistant professor to start his own lab. Dr. Al Batran’s research program primarily focusing on how obesity-induced alterations in ketone body metabolism, and how targeting ketone metabolism may be a novel approach to counteract obesity-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes and diabetic kidney disease.
William
Beaubien-Souligny
William Beaubien-Souligny, MD, PhD, FRCPC
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Dr. Beaubien-Souligny is a nephrologist at the Centre Hospitalier de l’Unviersité de Montréal (CHUM) and a researcher at the Centre de recherche du CHUM (CR CHUM). He was trained in adult nephrology and subsequently pursued a Ph.D. in Biomedical sciences within the Clinician Investigator program at the Université de Montréal as well as a research fellowship at St. Michael’s hospital in Toronto. Dr. Beaubien-Souligny’s research focuses on improving care to patients with acute and chronic kidney disease through a precise evaluation and management of fluid balance. His current projects include exploring novel methods of evaluation, such as Point-Of-Care ultrasound, exploring the concept of tolerance to fluid removal during kidney replacement therapy, and designing pragmatic interventions to prevent fluid accumulation in patients with acute kidney injury.
Mark
Canney
Mark Canney MD, PhD, FRCPC
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Dr. Canney is an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, associate scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, and staff nephrologist at the Ottawa Hospital. He completed his undergraduate medical degree at National University of Ireland Galway and undertook his internal medicine and nephrology training in Ireland. He completed a PhD in population health epidemiology at Trinity College Dublin in 2017 before moving to Canada to pursue a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia under the mentorship of Dr. Adeera Levin and Dr. Sean Barbour. It was there that he cultivated his research interests in the epidemiology of glomerular disease and refining our understanding of clinical outcomes in patients with different types of kidney disease. With the support of the KRESCENT program, Dr. Canney seeks to improve the awareness, assessment and management of cardiovascular risk among patients with glomerular disease.
Justin
Chun
Justin Chun MD, MSc, PhD, FRCPC
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Dr. Chun is a nephrologist and assistant professor at the University of Calgary. He obtained his MSc (2004) and PhD (2009) in Cell Biology at the University of Alberta followed by a medical degree (2011), residency in internal medicine (2014) and fellowship in nephrology (2016) at the University of Calgary. He was inspired to become a clinician-basic scientist after working with amazing clinician scientists, learning about the complexities of kidney diseases and witnessing the hardships faced by patients living with kidney disease. Throughout his clinical training, he continued with basic science research under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Muruve to study the NLRP3 inflammasome in kidney diseases including IgA nephropathy. He then moved to Boston to complete his KRESCENT fellowship (2016-2019) in the laboratory of Dr. Martin Pollak at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School where he learned new genetic approaches, trained to grow mini-kidneys called kidney organoids and discovered a role for lipid droplets in kidney disease. As the assistant director for the Precision Medicine in Nephrology Program at the University of Calgary, he is generating stem cells from patients for disease modelling and drug testing. His precision medicine, patient-oriented research program focuses on identifying biomarkers and therapies to improve patient care for diabetic kidney disease and glomerular diseases. He hopes that one day we will be able to grow functioning kidneys to replace dialysis.
David
Collister
David Collister, MD, PhD, FRCPC
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Dr. Collister completed his MD at the University of Manitoba, internal medicine Residency at the University of Alberta, nephrology fellowship at the University of Manitoba and PhD in health research methodology at McMaster University. His is a clinician scientist and assistant professor in the Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta. His research focuses on symptom management in patients with kidney disease and in particular, randomized controlled trials of treatments to alleviate uremic symptoms and prospective cohort studies in chronic kidney disease and dialysis.
Mallory
Downie
Mallory Downie, MD, FRCPC
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Dr. Downie is currently pursuing her PhD in bioinformatics and genetics at University College London, UK. She received her MD from the University of Toronto and completed her general paediatrics and clinical nephrology training at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. She is currently investigating the genetic contributors to childhood steroid sensitive nephrotic syndrome, one of the most common kidney diseases in children worldwide. Using genetic association studies in multi-ethnic populations, she aims to identify the genetic changes that make children at risk for developing more severe forms of disease and/or responding less well to treatment. Ultimately, Dr. Downie hopes that this work will contribute to establishing more individualized genetic risk profiles and more tailored treatments for children with steroid sensitive nephrotic syndrome.
Janine
Farragher
Janine Farragher OT, PhD
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Dr. Farragher is a registered occupational therapist and an assistant professor in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy at the University of Toronto. She completed a PhD in rehabilitation sciences from the University of Toronto, and a Post-doctoral Fellowship at the University of Calgary with the Interdisciplinary Chronic Disease Collaboration.
Dr. Farragher’s research uses a rehabilitative lens to understand life participation and its enablement in people with chronic kidney disease. She has co-led studies showing that conditions such as cognitive impairment & frailty are common in kidney disease and contribute to disability, and that inpatient rehabilitation can minimize functional losses after dialysis is initiated. Dr. Farragher has also led the development and testing of a novel energy management program (The “PEP” Program) to promote life participation for people on chronic hemodialysis with debilitating fatigue. Dr. Farragher’s overarching research objective is to elucidate the broad range of cognitive, psychosocial, and environmental factors that impact life participation in chronic kidney disease, so underexamined factors can be highlighted and proactively targeted in clinical care. Dr. Farragher has been the recipient of more than $410 000 in Tri-Council training awards, and has contributed to prominent national and international kidney care initiatives such as the development of a CKD self-management website (My Kidneys, My Health) and a standardized measure of life participation for people on peritoneal dialysis therapy (SONG-PD).
Danielle
Fox
Danielle Fox, RN
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Ms. Fox is a registered nurse and doctoral student under the supervision of Drs. Robert Quinn and David Campbell in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary. She is passionate about providing high-quality care and conducting research that improves healthcare systems for both patients and their families as well as for those working in healthcare. She aspires to be a clinician scientist, driving innovative and impactful research based on her clinical work. Her research interests focus on finding ways to meaningfully support people with kidney disease with the goal of creating a positive and sustainable care experience. Her doctoral work will focus specifically on co-designing person-centered models of care for people transitioning to home dialysis.
Eno
Hysi
Eno Hysi, PhD
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Dr. Hysi received his PhD from the Department of Physics at Ryerson University in 2020 and is currently a Banting fellow at St. Michael’s Hospital, Division of Nephrology in Toronto. A Vanier Scholar throughout his PhD, Dr. Hysi studied photoacoustic (PA) imaging in the context of cancer treatment monitoring. PA imaging is a relatively new hybrid imaging modality which combines optical and ultrasonic principles to study the chromophore composition of biological tissue. During his PhD, Dr. Hysi developed PA biomarkers of tumor vascularity for identifying cancer treatment response as early as a few hours post-treatment. His research has produced over 15 publications, 34 papers in conference proceedings, 2 book chapters/reviews and over 80 presentations. Throughout his studies, Dr. Hysi was the recipient of numerous academic awards and scholarships including the Ryerson Gold Medal, the Ontario/Alexander Graham Bell/Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships and most recently, the Polanyi Prize in Physics. During the KRESCENT fellowship, Dr. Hysi will explore the role of PA imaging for determining the fibrotic burden of kidney transplants. By measuring the degree of collagen pre-transplant non-invasively, physicians can optimally match each kidney to its most suitable recipient, ensuring the best possible outcome for patients in need of transplants.
Thomas
Kitzler
Thomas Kitzler, MD, FRCPC
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Dr. Kitzler is an assistant professor at the Department of Human Genetics at McGill University and a clinical geneticist with the Division of Medical Genetics at McGill University Health Centre. He has been recently appointed junior scientist to the Child Health and Human Development Program (Centre for Translational Biology) at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. Dr. Kitzler’s research focuses on the study of genetic causes of chronic kidney disease. His main focus is the development of novel prevention and treatment strategies by combining whole-exome sequencing information from patients with chronic kidney disease with CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology in patient-derived cell- and zebrafish animal models. After graduating from the Medical University of Graz, Austria, he spent several years conducting both clinical and basic research in chronic kidney disease at the Renal Research Institute, New York and McGill University, Montreal. Following his medical residency training at McGill University Health Centre, he completed a two-year research fellowship in Nephrogenetics at Boston Children’s Hospital – Harvard Medical School before returning to Montreal.
Caroline
Lamarche
Caroline Lamarche, MD, MSc, FRCPC
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Dr. Lamarche is a clinician scientist and transplant nephrologist at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital. She is an assistant clinical professor at the Université de Montréal. After her nephrology training at the Université de Montréal (2015), she completed a Masters degree on the use of adoptive immunotherapy to treat/prevent BK nephropathy in kidney transplant recipients. She then pursued a post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. Megan Levings at the University of British Columbia on the use of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) regulatory T cells (Tregs) to induce transplant tolerance. Her goal now as a new investigator is to bring immunotherapy to improve her patient’s care.
Simon
Leclerc
Simon Leclerc, MD, FRCPC
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Dr. Leclerc received his MD from the University of Montreal in 2016 and completed his internal medicine (2019) and nephrology (2021) training at the same university, spending most of his rotations at Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont in Montreal. He is currently pursuing his PhD in experimental medicine at McGill University under the supervision of Dr. Tomoko Takano and Dr. Ciriaco A. Piccirillo. His project is centered around a novel mouse model of minimal change disease, one of the most common forms of nephrotic syndrome for which there is no definitive cure. This new mouse model involves autoantibodies directed against an important podocyte protein. Dr. Leclerc hopes that studying this model will help to better understand minimal change disease and open new therapeutic possibilities.
Robert
Myette
Robert L. Myette MD, MSc, FRCPC
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Dr. Myette is a pediatric nephrologist at The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and is a PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa, in the Kidney Research Center, under the supervision of Dr. Dylan Burger and Dr. Chris Kennedy. He completed his undergraduate studies at Wilfrid Laurier University and his MSc at Queen’s University. He obtained his medical training from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and then returned to Queen’s University for his pediatric training. He then completed his pediatric nephrology fellowship training in Ottawa and was recruited as a part-time clinical nephrologist while completing his PhD. Dr. Myette aims to contribute to the understanding of molecular mechanisms associated with Pediatric Nephrotic Syndrome, which is one of the most common glomerular diseases in children. He will strive to discover new therapeutic avenues in hopes to reduce the cumulative steroid burden in these patients. Additionally, he plans to move the field forward regarding prognostication and seeks to discover ‘early warning’ molecular signals associated with disease relapse.
Ayodele
Odutaya
Ayodele Odutayo, MD, MSc, PhD, FRCPC
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Dr. Odutayo is a general internist and nephrologist. He obtained his Doctor of Medicine degree at the University of Toronto in 2013 and completed his Masters of Science (MSc) and Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in epidemiology from 2013-2017, both at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. His research focuses on clinical trials examining cardiovascular and renal disease and is co-funded by the Kidney Foundation of Canada.
Carol
Wang
Carol Wang, MD, MSc, FRCPC
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Dr. Wang completed her MD at the University of Alberta, internal medicine residency at the University of Ottawa and nephrology training at the University of Western Ontario. As part of the Clinician Investigator Program, she has embarked on graduate studies towards a MSc in clinical epidemiology in health research methodology at McMaster University. Her clinical and research interests are in kidney transplantation, including improving access to kidney transplant and outcomes following living donation. Under the supervision of clinician-scientist Dr. Amit Garg, she will study pregnancy outcomes amongst living kidney donors.
Ann
Young
Ann Young MD, PhD, FRCPC
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Dr. Young is a nephrologist and PhD-trained clinical epidemiologist. Her clinical and research interests are in health services and healthcare delivery for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Dr. Young’s post-doctoral research fellowship focuses on care patterns, quality of care and evaluation of novel approaches for the sustainable delivery of CKD care. Current projects include the evaluation of the feasibilty, safety and patient-centred outcomes of using video-based telemedicine (eVisits) for the provision of routine CKD care. Additionally, Dr. Young is working with a team of investigators to leverage province-wide health care databases to identify patients receiving suboptimal care (“case finding”) to maximize timely nephrology referrals and earlier intervention as a new and innovative approach to kidney care.
Kevin
Yau
Kevin Yau MD, FRCPC
KRESCENT Trainee Editorial Board Member
Dr. Yau received his medical degree from the University of Toronto in 2016 and subsequently completed internal medicine training at Western University. He returned to Toronto for his nephrology fellowship and graduated in 2021. He is currently completing a cardiac, renal, endocrinology multidisciplinary fellowship and training in clinical epidemiology & health care research as an Eliot Phillipson Scholar in the University of Toronto Clinician-Scientist Training Program. His research as a KRESCENT post-doctoral fellow will be focused on evaluating therapies for patients with cardiac and kidney disease including glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists.
