Raoul D. Nelson, MD, PhD

Dr. Raoul Nelson received his medical degree and doctorate of philosophy from the Molecular Program at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, completed his Pediatric residency at University of Utah and Primary Children’s Medical Center, and completed his Nephrology Fellowship at St. Louis Children’s Hospital at Washington University in St. Louis. He is currently a Professor in the Nephrology & Hypertension division at University of Utah and is board-certified in Pediatric Nephrology. He is Chief of the Division of Pediatric Nephrology & Hypertension and Medical Director of Pediatric Dialysis.

His research interests have included collecting duct physiology and pathophysiology, kidney development, and cystic kidney disease. He has created a number of transgenic mouse models expressing green fluorescent protein and Cre recombinase within intercalated and principal cells of the renal collecting duct. The Cre expression mouse models have been used to knockout genes from the renal collecting duct in studies of polycystic kidney disease, hypertension, kidney development and collecting duct physiology. The green fluorescent protein expressing mice were used to develop the COPAS technique for isolation of tubules for molecular analysis and perform systems biology studies of gene expression within intercalated cells of the kidney. He has also studied transcription factor regulation of collecting development and transport. Finally, he has contributed to several genetic studies of tubular disorders of the kidney including renal tubular acidosis.

He now is now transitioning to clinical research and is recruiting pediatric and adolescent patients to participate in multicenter studies as part of the Midwestern Pediatric Nephrology Research Consortium. These studies aim to define the natural history and explore treatments for kidney disease in pediatric and adolescent patients. Currently he is a co-Principal Investigator for a collaborative study of genetics and biomarkers in pediatric and adolescent IgA nephropathy and Henoch-Schonlein Purpura that will use GWAS and WES to identify novel genetic loci involved in the pathogenesis of disease. He is also a co-investigator in a study of nephrolithiasis in pediatric and adolescent patients that is under development that will investigate new approaches to treatment and also have a biological repository for future studies. He has completed a pilot study of HPV vaccine in chronic kidney disease, dialysis and transplant patients compared to healthy controls. He is also local principal investigator for randomized and open label trials of cinecalcet in treatment of patients ages 6 to < 18 years of age on dialysis with secondary hyperparathyroidism. He is also a local principal investigator for a clinical trial of azilsartan in patients ages 6 to < 18 years of age with hypertension. Such drug trials are designed to obtain FDA labeling for pediatric indication for use. The overall goal is to make contributions to improve care of renal disease in pediatric and adolescent patients.