Ina Maria Schiessl

Ina Maria Schiessl says: “Diabetes mellitus involves major functional complications of the kidney, which render this disease to the number one cause of end-stage kidney failure. One reason for this, are strong structural changes of the cells which built up the kidney blood vessels. This includes their migration away from the vessels, which leads to scarring of the kidney and destabilizing vessels, both decreasing kidney function. However, this mechanism is incompletely understood, because of the lack of techniques to track such structural and functional changes. In this project, I will use a novel microscopy-based technique, which I have developed in my previous work that allows us to study kidney structure and function simultaneously and over time in the same living animal. Hence, now we can visualize how those cells move away from the vessels, better understand why they do this and what functional consequences this has. Finally, we will test if this can be blocked by a new and promising anti-diabetic drug, which is already used in patients.”

Ina Maria Schiessl will relocate from her postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Physiology and Neuroscience at University of Southern California, United States, to set up her independent research group at Aarhus University in the fall of 2019.