The MiKTMC Team

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Matthias Kretzler, MD

Professor of Internal Medicine
Research Professor, DCMB

kretzler@med.umich.edu

Dr. Kretzler graduated from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Munich, Germany and a nephrology fellowship at the University of Munich. He is a past research fellow in physiology and nephrology at the University of Michigan. He has a special interest in the diagnosis and management of glomerular diseases and diabetic kidney disease. Dr. Kretzler’s title is Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor of Internal Medicine/Nephrology and Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics.

Faculty

Fadhl Alakwaa, PhD

Research Investigator

alakwaaf@med.umich.edu

Celine Berthier, PhD

Associate Research Scientist

celineb@med.umich.edu

Sean Eddy, PhD

Assistant Research Scientist

seaneddy@med.umich.edu

Jennifer Harder, MD

Assistant Professor

jlharder@med.umich.edu

Wenjun Ju, PhD

Associate Research scientist

wenjunj@med.umich.edu

Laura Mariani, MD

Assistant Professor

lmariani@med.umich.edu

Raji Menon, PhD

Associate Research Scientist

rajmenon@med.umich.edu

Abhijit (Jeet) Naik, MD

Assistant Professor

abhinaik@med.umich.edu

Edgar Otto, PhD

Associate research scientist

eotto@med.umich.edu

Jennifer Schaub, MD

Clinical Lecturer in Nephrology

schaubj@med.umich.edu

Staff

Heather Ascani, MBA

Director of Business Development

ascanihk@med.umich.edu

Alex Barkell

Software Engineer

albarkel@umich.edu

Ruth Ann Buntin

administrative specialist

ruthannb@med.umich.edu

Emily Cichon

administrative Assistant

ecichon@umich.edu

Rachel Dull

Data Curator

roram@med.umich.edu

Felix Eichinger

Bioinformatics / Systems biologist

eichinge@umich.edu

Jamal El Saghir, MSC

Research lab specialist, Intermediate

ejamal@med.umich.edu

Damian Fermin, PhD

Computational Biologist

dfermin@med.umich.edu

Matthew Fischer

Research Lab Specialist

mattfisc@umich.edu

Brad Godfrey, PhD

Research Lab Specialist

godfreyb@med.umich.edu

John Hartman

Computational Biologist

jrhartma@med.umich.edu

Daniela Knoefler Koniczek, PhD

Business Development Associate

knoefler@med.umich.edu

Maria Larkina

Sr. Statistician

mlark@med.umich.edu

Justin Leopold

Sr. Project Manager

juleopol@umich.edu

Chrysta Lienczewski

Clinical Research Program Manager

boridley@med.umich.edu

Tina Mainieri

NEPTUNE Project Manager

tmainier@med.umich.edu

Phil McCown, PhD

Computational Biologist

pjlmac@med.umich.edu

Viji Nair

Lead Bioinformatics / Computational Biologist

vijin@med.umich.edu

Becky Reamy

Lead software engineer

rlreamy@med.umich.edu

Michael Rose

Sr.User Experience designer

rosemi@med.umich.edu

Therese Roth, PhD

Research Lab Technician

rotht@med.umich.edu

Jharna Saha

Research Lab Specialist

jhsaha@umich.edu

Becky Steck

Director of Software Solutions

roesch@med.umich.edu

Lalita Subramanian

Scientific Writer

lsub@med.umich.edu

Emily Tanner

Sr. Research Lab Technician

ecma@med.umich.edu

Joseph Tychewicz

Project Manager

jtychew@med.umich.edu

Yuee (Moon) Wang

Research Tech

yueew@med.umich.edu

Virginia Warner-Vega

Lead Research Lab Specialist

vvegaw@med.umich.edu

Amanda Williams

Clinical Research Coordinator

amwi@med.umich.edu

Zach Wright

SR. Software Engineer

zwright@umich.edu

Visitors

Akihiro Minakawa, PhD

Research Fellow

aminakaw@umich.edu

Takaya Ozeki, MD, PhD

Research Fellow

tozeki@med.umich.edu

Our Partners

Markus Bitzer, MD, MS

Associate Professor

markusbi@med.umich.edu

Jeffrey Hodgin, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor

jhodgin@med.umich.edu

Alumni

Faculty & Partners

Toralf Melsom, MD, PhD
Jon Viljar Norvik, MD
Matt Sampson, MD, MSCE

Staff

Jamie Bixler (Clinical Research Coordinator)
Fred Fang (Statistician Intermediate)
Jody Fisher (Executive Assistant/Office Manager)
Gates, Chris (Lead Bioinformatics Software Developer)
Brandi Gizinski (Project Manager)
Habib Hamidi, PhD (Computational Biologist)
Jennifer Hawkins (Clinical Subjects Coordinator)
Huateng Huang (Research Lab Specialist)
Michael Hwang (Lab Intern)
Lois Hunter (Administrative Assistant)
Tiffany Johnson (Project Manager)
Song Jiang
Matthew Manninen (Research Lab Scientist)
Mark Tomillo (Project Manager)
Noel Wys (Research Lab Specialist)

Students & Fellows

Jiahao (Joe) Liu
Dorota Marchel
Skander Mulder (Fellow)
Thaddaeus (Ted) Struk
Catherine Zhu
Vidar Stefansson, MD

Matthias Kretzler

Professor of Internal Medicine
Research Professor, DCMB

Dr. Kretzler is the Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor of Internal Medicine/Nephrology and Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics. The overarching goal of his research is to define chronic organ dysfunction in mechanistic terms and use this knowledge for targeted therapeutic interventions. To reach this goal he has developed a translational research pipeline centered on integrated systems biology analysis of renal disease.

He leads the U54 Nephrotic Syndrome Research Network (Neptune) in the Rare Disease Clinical Research Network II, is a Principle Investigator (PI) of the Coordinating center of the CureGN research network, the Director of the Applied Systems Biology Core, PI in the R24 “Integrated Systems Biology Approach to Diabetic Microvascular Complications” and site PI in the NIH Acceleration of Medicine (AMP) program in lupus.

He has 20 years of experience in integration of bioinformatics, molecular and clinical approaches in more than 210 publications. He has a track record on interdisciplinary data integration of large-scale data sets in international multi-disciplinary research networks in the US, Europe, China and sub-Saharan Africa. These studies enable precision medicine across the genotype-phenotype continuum using carefully monitored environmental exposures, genetic predispositions, epigenetic markers, transcriptional networks, proteomic profiles, metabolic fingerprints, digital histological biopsy archive and prospective clinical disease characterization. The molecular mechanism identified have result in new disease predictors and successful phase II trial of a novel therapeutic modality in diabetic kidney disease.

Matthias Kretzler was born in Bruchsal, Germany close to Heidelberg (and France). He received his medical training at the University of Heidelberg, Germany; Newcastle upon the Tyne in the U.K.; and at the University of Michigan.

Taking full advantage of Germany’s medical training system, Matthias enrolled in an MD/PhD structured program working Wilhelm Kriz’s Anatomy and Cell Biology research team on the mechanism of glomerular filtration barrier failure. The fascination of the aesthetic beauty of glomerular filters has become the central theme of his research for the past 20 years. Beginning with ultrastructural morphology, he expanded his research efforts to modern molecular biology tools during a post-doctoral fellowship with Josie Briggs, MD, Juergen Schnermann, MD, and Larry Holzman, MD and the University of Michigan.

After returning to Germany he built, under the mentorship of Detlef Schlondorff, MD, a molecular nephrology laboratory at the Medizinische Poliklinik in Munich. Using the unique research team network around the European Renal Cell Study Group, he initiated what is now a worldwide network of kidney research centers to define molecular mechanism of renal disease in humans. For this personalized medicine approach to Nephrology he found an ideal environment at his old alma mater – the University of Michigan – and is now embedded in the fascinating collaborative network of molecular biologists, clinician-scientists, mathematicians, bioinformaticians, and systems analysts at work in Ann Arbor.

The love of his life, Annette, and his two children Katharina and Johannes, are very effective counterbalances to his busy life as a clinician-scientist and ensure he enjoys the wonders and beauties of Michigan’s nature.

Publications