Michelle C. Starr, MD, MPH, FASN

Bridge Grant Pilot Program

Institution: Indiana University School of Medicine

How would you sum up your overall research focus in one sentence?

Our research aims to understand how urinary tract infections drive kidney injury and damage in children with vesicoureteral reflux, with the ultimate goal of preventing chronic kidney disease before irreversible damage occurs.

Provide a brief overview of the research/project you will conduct with help from the grant.

With KidneyCure Bridge Grant support, we will be able to pilot work developing approaches to evaluating renal functional reserve in children and young adults, and developing the infrastructure to track renal biomarker trajectories to identify early predictors of kidney injury. Bridge funding has allowed us to maintain project momentum and generate pilot data.

What inspired you to focus your work in this area?

As a pediatric nephrologist, I care for children whom are at risk for CKD, whether it be from acute kidney injury, prematurity, or vesicoureteral reflux. In these children, CKD is often undetected until damage is irreversible, and the lack of reliable early markers to identify which children will progress to CKD motivated our group to pursue research that could change how we monitor and intervene in this population.

What impact do you hope your research will have on people with kidney diseases?

I hope this work will shift clinical practice from reactive management to proactive, risk-guided surveillance, allowing us to identify children at highest risk for kidney injury earlier and intervene before CKD develops. Ultimately, I want families to have evidence-based answers about their child's risk of CKD and better understand potential interventions to delay the onset of severe CKD when possible.

What has surprised you most about your career?

I never set out to be a researcher, but during fellowship, I kept encountering the same clinical uncertainty in children with kidney injury about their risk for CKD. My honest answer at that time was that we didn't have strong evidence to guide us. These unanswered clinical questions have been a powerful motivator, and I have found that the most meaningful research directions have come from the bedside and from questions from patients and their families.

What are the major challenges facing nephrology research today?

Pediatric nephrology research faces a shortage of funded investigators and pediatric specific research infrastructure. This problem is compounded by the small but clinically significant patient populations that make large trials difficult. However, this is also a moment of opportunity as pediatric nephrology is better positioned than ever to answer questions that have long gone unresolved if we can sustain the investigator pipeline and infrastructure needed to do so.

In one sentence, please describe the importance of having grant funding available through KidneyCure.

KidneyCure bridge funding is the difference and has allowed our team to maintain scientific momentum needed to answer critical questions about childhood kidney disease.

Something you may not know about me is…

I am the mom of three kids, including identical twin girls.

In my free time I like to…

Read books and listen to live music.