Anti-Nephrin Antibodies in Minimal Change Disease
Approach to the Patient with Peritoneal Dialysis Catheter Dysfunction- Part 1
Want to write a case report? RFN has you covered with a list of journals to choose from
Have a Nephrology Question? There Might Be A #Tweetorial For That!
Conferences, Courses, & Grants
FOAMed
Interventional Nephrology Series
Focus on Point-of-Care Ultrasound in Nephrology (POCUN) Series
Kidney Biopsy of the Month Series
What the killifish can teach nephrologists
Killifish are small, brightly-colored tropical fish which number well over a thousand different species. What makes them of interest to renal physiologists is their ability to adapt to both freshwater AND saltwater. It’s not a trivial accomplishment: when…
Phosphate Transporters in the Proximal Tubule
Phosphorus handling is a hot topic in renal physiology, especially considering the advanced being made in bone metabolism suggesting that vascular calcifications may play some role in the high mortality rate of chronic kidney disease patients. But how…
Zebrafish Glomerular Experiments
The zebrafish kidney is being increasingly studied, as it appears to offer several advantages for studying renal function. For one, it is transparent, allowing one to visualize kidney development in real-time. Second, it is a simplified system consisting…
Diuretic effects
Diuretics act at the apical surface of specific segments of the renal tubular epithelium. Question: how do diuretics get to the apical surface? One could imagine several such scenarios, such as diuretics getting filtered at the glomerulus and…
From Fish To Philosopher
Homer Smith is considered the Father of Renal Physiology. He was a PhD (rather than an MD) whose studies on the fish renal system are amongst the first renal physiology experiments. For instance, his work on the goosefish…
Reporting Live from Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratories
I’m coming to you live for the next week from Mount Desert Island Biological Lab (MDIBL) in Maine, where I’m taking a course entitled “Origins of Renal Physiology.“ The course is designed for renal fellows such as myself…
Ampho-terrible
Amphotericin is one of those medications which keeps nephrologists in business by virtue of its predictable nephrotoxic effects. The mechanism of amphotericin-induced renal failure is felt to be acute tubular necrosis (ATN); the drug binds to sterols in…
Statins in CKD: the 4D Study & More.
Cardiovascular disease is by far and away the #1 killer for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD_. Therefore, HMG coA reductase inhibitors (a.k.a. “statins”)–with their impressive track record of clinical trials showing a…
First Use Syndrome
I have never seen “First Use Syndrome” firsthand, but it usually comes up as a topic when discussing “Complications of Dialysis.” It refers to a severe IgE-mediated anaphylactoid reaction which occurs during the first use of a dialyzer,…
Isopropyl Alcohol
Isopropyl alcohol is unique amongst the toxic alcohols (e.g., ethylene glycol, methanol, etc) in that it causes an osmolar gap WITHOUT causing an anion gap. In addition, unlike the toxic alcohols listed above, it is the isopropanol itself…