May everyone associated with Nephrology have dreams to #SockItToKidneyDisease far larger than your memories of even your most impactful days.
On this #WorldKidneyDay, it is Day One!
On this #WorldKidneyDay, let's #SockItToKidneyDisease and celebrate everyone who is making it happen!
Outstanding article by Dr. Suzanne Watnick.
Let's end the Innivation Stagnation in Nephrology.
H/t to @gratefull080504.bsky.social for letting me know about the article.
www.healthaffairs.org/content/fore...
Thank you to Drs. Paul DeCaen and Orhi Esarte for having me at today's Advanced Cryo-Electron Microscopy and Topography open house and symposium.
Exciting to see how quickly the technology is progressing.
Glad the partial government shutdown is ending.
Not happy NIH people were impacted.
So wish I were the Health and Human Secretary, lobbing hard for the people in government working every day to make a difference.
"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” Martin Luther King - March 25, 1966.
Vertex founder "Boger aspired not only to be successful but also to change the standard by which success in pharmaceuticals was measured, both within the industry and in society."
Let's do that with Nephrology.
Vertex founder Boger "often told people he wanted Vertex to be the most feared pharmaceutical company and the most fun...feared because of its fearlessness, fun because it was more exciting to dare, excel, and win against all odds..."
Let's make this the culture of Nephrology.
“Don’t you think this is five years too early?” (Vertex) founding scientist and president Joshua Boger was often asked. “Yes,” he would say, “but five years from now it’ll be five years too late.”
Let's make Nephrology the medical field that is always way out in front.
This was Vertex' founder Joshua Boger's recruiting line for getting people to join his team. Let's adopt it for Nephrology.
“If I’m right, I’m gonna save a million lives a year. What else are you doing that’s so damn important?”
Vertex Pharmaceuticals. A company build on the extreme confidence, focus, and passion that they could achieve the then revolutionary goal to build drugs from the atom up.
Let's bring the same belief in ourselves and energy to Nephrology's push to go from bench to bedside.
Merry Christmas to everyone who is celebrating! And thank you to everyone taking care of kidney patients today.
Reading another seminal paper on the Valley of Death in translational research, with an eye on Nephrology's future.
“Assessing the translatability of drug projects: what needs to be scored to predict success?” Nature Reviews Drug Discovery (2009) by Dr. Martin Wehling.
Saturday morning at a coffee shop reading the seminal article, "Translational research: crossing the valley of death," from Nature in 2008 by Declan Butler.
Let's turn the kidney valley of death into the runway into tomorrow.
Watching Amazon Web Services' annual conference.
Imagine if Nephrologists had an AI assistant that analyzed all the data a kidney patient produces - more than a human could ever digest - to serve as the Dr.'s virtual assistant - freeing up time and increasing insight.
A great morning when I run into a pioneer in the visualization of the molecular basis of kidney disease, Orhi Esarte Palomero, PhD from @nu-nephrology.bsky.social , and we have an awesome conversation about his research with his wife, pediatric respiratory researcher Ashley Cunningham.
Thank you to @obrienkidney.bsky.social for highlighting innovative kidney research and all that you do for kidney health.
Let's make every day in Nephrology better than yesterday.
Imagine what Nephrology would look like if everyone in the field collaborated with someone in a seemingly unrelated field. The geologist on how to break kidney stones, the coach on how to motivate patients, the engineer on the dialysis machine.
Let's make our Nephrology messaging far more compelling.
No more 3 times a week of four hours of dialysis.
Instead, a 50% chance of being dead in five years, a higher mortality rate than some solid organ cancers, and a fierce urgency for major advances.
How many dialysis patients just celebrated their last Thanksgiving?
Let's drive that number lower every year.
...with a Nephrology united by fierce ambition, tight timelines, and transparent metrics to light up the field and its patients with a dialysis that is always better.
Let's have a vision for dialysis technology - "Always better." Repeated at every new fellows orientation, professional gathering, and investor presentation.
Kicking off Thanksgiving with a 5K. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who is celebrating!
Up very late reading a Harvard case study on how Target ALS, a disease where little progress had been made in 100 years, brought vision ("everyone lives"), funding, and broke down silos to supercharge innovation.
Let's do the same for kidney health.
case.hks.harvard.edu/dan-doctorof...
The Sunday plenary xenotransplantation session at #KidneyWk is worth watching on YouTube.
In addition to so many exciting developments, glad to hear the patient voice is helping drive innovation forward.
“Everyone Lives” - Target ALS documentary worth watching.
Three operating principles:
• Impatient Optimism (urgency + belief)
• Deliberate Disruption (break what’s broken)
• Radical Collaboration (dissolve silos)
Time to get deliberately impatient about kidney health.
Great #KidneyWk. Exciting developments in pharma and transplantation. But here’s what keeps me up: dialysis innovation has barely moved. It’s the third leg of the stool, and we’re pretending a two-legged stool is stable. Time to get serious about breakthrough dialysis technology.
Surprised when basic science kidney researchers at #KidneyWk tell me they rarely talk with kidney patients. We need to flip this. Show researchers the real lives their work impacts. Motivation isn’t abstract — it’s human. Let’s build those connections systematically.
Excellent #KidneyWk presentation by @glombandit.bsky.social on why kidney biopsies still matter in membranous nephropathy. Plus the integration of rigorous clinical thinking with her kidney artwork. Well done.
Seeing @daniel-batlle.bsky.social and @jwaitz.bsky.social at #KidneyWk — always a reminder that nephrology’s strength is in its people. Leaders who engage, contribute, and elevate the conversation.
#KidneyWk: Join us for a policy/advocacy/community health meetup. If you are interested in these topics, this conversation is for you. Today at 6pm. Open to all.
