Medicine Grand Rounds, Will Pendergraft “These Are Your Kidneys on Lupus”

Dr. Will Pendergraft is Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology. His specialty areas include Glomerular disease, vasculitis (with primary focus on ANCA vasculitis), lupus nephritis, and drug-induced autoimmune disease.

In this lecture, Dr. Pendergraft will describe the impact of lupus on the kidneys and review the current clinical and translational states of lupus nephritis, including the first successful clinical trial in lupus nephritis. Lupus nephritis is the term used when lupus causes inflammation in the kidneys, making them unable to properly remove waste from blood or control the amount of fluids in the body. Abnormal levels of waste can build up in the blood and edema can develop. Left untreated, nephritis can lead to scarring and permanent damage to the kidneys and possibly end-stage renal disease, requiring dialysis or a kidney transplant. It is estimated that as many as 40 percent of all people with lupus, and as many as two-thirds of all children with lupus, will develop kidney complications that require medical evaluation and treatment.

Dr. Pendergraft provides medical care for patients with kidney disease, educates trainees about nephrology, and conducts translational and clinical research with a special emphasis on autoimmune diseases that affect the kidneys. His other research interests include:

• Understanding response to therapy and relapse in lupus nephritis and ANCA vasculitis using high-resolution systems-level tools (epigenetic, transcriptomic, metabolomic, proteomic and microbiomic)
• Repurposing FDA-approved drugs for use in lupus nephritis and ANCA vasculitis
• Translational studies aimed at understanding drug-induced forms of ANCA vasculitis
• Clinical trials of existing and novel biologic therapies for lupus nephritis and ANCA vasculitis
• Clinical data analysis of large and unique cohorts of patients with either lupus nephritis, ANCA vasculitis or idiopathic membranous nephropathy
• In-depth characterization of rituximab use and development of guidelines to prevent and manage adverse event