Dr. Afshinnia entered medical school in 1988 and graduated with a medical degree in 1995 from Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in Iran. He became interested in epidemiology and clinical research at an early stage of career, taught introductory research design and data analysis at the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences and practiced medicine part time in the inpatient and outpatient setting.

He immigrated to the United States in 2000 and joined the Internal Medicine residency program at the Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York from 2002 to 2005. After graduation from residency, he practiced internal medicine as a hospitalist until July 2010. He enrolled in the Masters of Science clinical research training program at the University of Minnesota in 2007 and graduated in 2010, while working as a hospitalist. He was then recruited as a Nephrology Fellow to the University of Michigan in July 2010 and was appointed as a Clinical Lecturer in the Division of Nephrology effective July 1, 2012.

Farsad’s research interest include identifying risk factors, developing strategies for early disease detection, risk factor modification and examining their impact on outcomes in chronic kidney disease. Therefore he joined Dr. Pennathur’s lab in 2013, with research efforts aimed at identification and validation of prognostic metabolites capable of predicting progression of chronic kidney disease to end stage kidney disease at earlier stages of disease using targeted and untargeted metabolomic platforms in established cohorts of patients with kidney disease. To that end the impact of novel biomarkers in risk stratification and early diagnosis, besides their impact on renal and cardiovascular outcomes beyond currently used traditional biomarkers are under investigation.

Manikanta received his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT) and Osmania University in 2021. During his doctoral research, he developed and validated bioanalytical methods for active pharmaceutical ingredients using HPLC and LC-MS/MS.  He further developed and validated Chiral LC-MS/MS methods for the separation of enantiomers. After graduating, he started working at the Pennathur lab. His main research focuses on the development of complementary metabolomic techniques based on mass spectrometry for the study of diabetic kidney disease.

Judy Baek received her BS in biology and chemistry from MIT in 2013. Currently, she is pursing her MD and PhD as a fellow of the Medical Scientist Training Program at University of Michigan.

Jaeman Byun was born in Seoul, South Korea and received his Ph. D. under the training of Dr. Gross at Washington University, St. Louis, US. He then expanded his research efforts to clinical studies with state-of-art bioanalytical mass spectrometric tools during a post-doctoral fellowship with Jay Heinecke, MD, Washington University. Since joining Dr. Pennathur’s lab, he is involved in a number of original and creative ideas and approaches that have the potential to make a tremendous impact in clinical investigation and health care. His work has focused on the applications of biological mass spectrometry in disease pathogenesis with emphasis on oxidative mechanisms and biological mass spectrometry. He has actively participated in several studies focused on oxidative stress, proteomics, metabolomics and biomarker discovery in diabetic complications, chronic kidney disease, and cancer. His work enables early discovery of complications and develop novel therapeutic strategies.

Chenchen received her Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Wayne State University in 2018, and her focus was on the characterization of biomolecules using tandem mass spectrometry. She joined the Pennathur lab immediately after graduation. Since joining the lab, she has worked on the development of LC-MS based quantitative analysis for lipidomic and metabolomic platforms in cross-species systems in order to identify key lipogenic and metabolomics pathways in diabetic kidney disease. Chenchen was accepted into the NIH Postdoctoral Multidisciplinary Training Program in Basic Diabetes Research (T32 Training Grant) at the University of Michigan in 2019.

Pradeep received his Ph.D in 1998 from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India. He started his post-doctoral fellowship in University of Michigan at the Obstetrics & Gynecology and Biochemistry departments in 2000. During the post-doctoral fellowship he studied the growth characteristics of ovarian cells under hyper-androgenic conditions with special emphasis on cell signaling. He joined Dr. Pennathur’s laboratory in 2012 and his research is focused on the altered metabolite utilization using metabolic flux analysis, post-translational modification of enzymes and mitochondrial dysfunction under diabetic conditions.

Anna is a junior faculty member in the Division of Nephrology. Her initial research efforts during her training as a nephrology fellow focused on translational research in diabetic and obesity related renal disease under the mentorship of Dr. Kumar Sharma, University of California San Diego. In her current position she applies the principles of mass spectrometry in unraveling metabolic profiles of renal disease. She has spent the last 3 years in Dr. Pennathur’s lab understanding sample preparation, chromatography and mass spectrometry techniques. Her work has resulted in discovery of metabolic markers in diabetic kidney disease and cardiovascular complications in kidney disease that are being validated with larger cohorts and by mechanistic studies. Her time is spread between her research, clinical duties, two loving children and a very supportive husband.