Anand Srivastava, MD, MPH

2023 Carl W. Gottschalk Research Scholar Grant

Institution: University of Illinois Chicago

Project Title: Functional MRI for Enhanced Phenotyping of CKD

How would you sum up your research in one sentence?

I am strongly committed to patient-oriented research focused on discovery and validation of novel non-invasive biochemical and imaging biomarkers that will identify high-risk patients with kidney diseases to optimize conduct of clinical trials and serve as tools for drug development.  

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

We will obtain kidney functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)-derived assessments of fibrosis, oxygen status, and perfusion on participants with CKD undergoing a research native kidney biopsy enrolled at two Recruitments Sites of the Kidney Precision Medicine Project. We will test the reproducibility of kidney fMRI across multiple sites and the associations of kidney fMRI-derived biomarkers with chronic histopathologic lesions in patients with CKD.  

What impact do you hope your research will have on patients?

I hope that this line of investigation will lead to further development of novel imaging tools to provide non-invasive assessments of critical histopathologic lesions that have prognostic value. Further development of novel non-invasive imaging may also allow for precision medicine approaches to identify sub-phenotypes of patients with CKD or serve as surrogate markers of chronic histopathologic lesions in future drug development trials.

What are your career goals at the end of the grant period? Five years out? Ten years out?

Results from this award will hopefully lead to a successful NIH-funded R01 proposal. In five to ten years, I hope to establish a research program that critically tests multiple modalities of non-invasive imaging in patients with kidney diseases while mentoring trainees to further advance this field of investigation. 

What has surprised you most about your career?

The joy of cross-disciplinary research. Pushing boundaries beyond my specific skillset benefitted from cross-disciplinary collaboration. The insights and approaches to problem-solving in different disciplines, inside and outside of medicine, are refreshing and inspiring.

What are the major challenges facing nephrology research today?

While there have been great attempts to identify non-invasive biomarkers of acute and chronic kidney injury, many biomarkers have not made the leap to clinical practice. This research aims to further develop non-invasive imaging biomarkers, which have had success in other fields of medicine. 

What advice would you give to others to encourage them to apply for this grant funding?

You will never know unless you try. Crystallizing your ideas into this grant application is a great vehicle to obtain feedback on your ideas and hopefully serves as a springboard to larger grants. 

Something you may not know about me is…

I wanted to be an astronomer as a child and still love to read about advances in space exploration. 

In my free time I like to…

Spend time with my family watching our son grow up. Explore new restaurants. Travel to new destinations nationally and internationally.  

Follow on Twitter: @ASrivastavaMD