I direct one of the largest renal pathology laboratories in the country, which processes approximately 4800 renal biopsies annually. My major research interests are mechanisms of glomerular and tubulointerstitial injury in podocytopathies, immune mediated glomerulonephritis, and toxic tubulopathies. I am interested in how pathologic forms of injury manifest clinically, the pathogenetic mechanisms governing distinct morphologic patterns of injury, and how disease biomarkers can inform treatment and outcome in the individual patient. My basic research has focused primarily on mechanisms of podocyte dysregulation, injury and depletion in primary and secondary forms of FSGS and how such dysregulation promotes progressive CKD. My work in animal models has characterized molecular mechanisms of podocyte injury in HIVAN, primary FSGS and diabetic nephropathy.

My large renal biopsy practice has facilitated my group's discovery and characterization of new glomerulopathies and emerging forms of drug toxicity, such as IgA-dominant post-staphylococcal glomerulonephritis, proliferative glomerulonephritis with monoclonal IgG deposits, smoking-related glomerulopathy, phosphate nephropathy and the nephrotoxicity of bisphosphonates and anabolic steroids. My laboratory's discovery of CKD following phosphate-based bowel cleansing for screening colonoscopy and FSGS following anabolic steroid abuse were the subject of feature articles in the Science and Sports sections of the New York Times.

In addition to my clinical practice and research, I am deeply committed to education. I have published over 400 peer-reviewed papers and 80 book chapters, and have co-edited 6 textbooks of renal pathology, including the latest edition of Heptinstall's Pathology of the Kidney. For the past 3 decades, I have organized and directed the annual Columbia postgraduate course "Renal Biopsy in Medical Diseases of the Kidney", which is attended by approximately 200 international registrants per year. I lecture regularly in symposia and courses at annual meeting of the ASN, WCN and USCAP and have trained approximately 20 fellows, many of whom now direct their own renal pathology laboratories at major medical centers.

Email: vdd1@cumc.columbia.edu