Principal Investigator
Associate Professor of Medicine
Division of Nephrology

Dr. Ilse Daehn is a molecular and cell biologist with expertise in DNA damage and oxidative stress. She obtained her undergraduate in Biotechnology (Honors) and was awarded her Ph.D from the Flinders University of South Australia in 2008. She then pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at Cancer Research UK, London before joining the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2010. She became faculty at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2013. Her primary research interests are to understand the early molecular events involving mitochondria that occur and lead to chronic kidney disease. Her work has provided a fundamental paradigm shift in our current understanding of chronic kidney disease development and is now applying this knowledge to seek for biomarkers in the urine for early detection of disease and its progression. Dr. Daehn is also interested in exploring and evaluating the genetic susceptibility of individuals in the community to developing progressive kidney disease. Dr. Daehn is a leader in the scientific community actively involved in encouraging networking, collaboration and innovation among young researchers (kiiln.org)

Dr. Ubong Ekperikpe received his Ph.D. in Experimental Therapeutics and Pharmacology from the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) in August 2023. His doctoral dissertation focused on the role of insulin resistance and inflammation during the progression of renal injury in a novel rat model of prepubertal obesity. Before joining the Ph.D. program at UMMC, Ubong was involved in studies that investigated the antidiabetic effects of some functional foods (locust beans and grapefruit) at the University of Benin, Nigeria. He joined the Daehn lab in September 2023, and his current project is focused on understanding genetic susceptibility to diabetic kidney disease.

Liping Yu is a Senior Associate Researcher int he Division of Nephrology and graduated from Jiangxi Medical College in China. She received a diploma in pharmacology from Jiangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. She was a head pharmacist studying herbal medicines in China. In 2001, she joined Dr. Bottinger’s lab at Albert Einstein College of Medicine as a technician. She moved with the lab to Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 2004. Currently she is a senior research associate and lab manager, and is involved in the projects studying CKD biomarkers and podocytes-endothelium crosstalk by working with the faculty members and postdocs in the lab.

Tina Chen is an associate researcher in the Daehn lab. She received her B.A. in Chemistry from Harvard University in 2024, and as a born and raised New Yorker, she returned to New York after graduation to further develop her science training. Tina has experience in various types of research, including computational research on climate change impacts on crop growth and clinical research with patients with cardiovascular disease. She is passionate about improving patient care and treatments, and she hopes to direct this interest to better understand the complex factors that contribute to kidney disease through understanding the genetic susceptibility to kidney disease.

Derbie Desir, M.S. is a Master of Science in Clinical Research student working in the Daehn Lab. Her research focuses on mitochondrial dynamics in proximal tubular epithelial cells in response to diabetic stress, aiming to uncover how mitochondrial dysfunction drives the progression of diabetic kidney disease. Through this work, she hopes to gain deeper insights into kidney pathophysiology and explore translational approaches that may improve patient outcomes.

PAST MEMBERS:

Serena Zhao received her B.S. in Engineering Sciences (Bioengineering Track) from Harvard College in May 2024. Previously, she was a 2023 MERRIT Engineering Fellow at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, working in the Daehn Lab on the development of genetic editing tools to reduce genetic susceptibility to diabetic kidney disease. After graduation, she returned to the Daehn Lab as a Research Associate, continuing projects to understand genetic susceptibility to diabetic kidney disease and other diabetic complications as well as the therapeutic potential of gene editors for this context.

Dr. Hunter Korsmo earned their Ph.D in Biochemistry from the City University of New York Graduate Center – New York, in 2022. During their predoc, they focused on the long-term impacts of prenatal choline supplementation on offspring fatty liver disease in a mouse model of maternal diabetes. Following their defense in 2022, they worked as a postdoc in immunology investigating the immunomodulatory effects of methylated tryptamines in vitro before joining the Daehn Lab. Hunter joined the Daehn Lab in May 2023 and was involved in projects investigating the crosstalk between endothelial cells in podocytes upon acute and chronic insults and the role of oxidative stress in kidney disease progression and impact on the liver.

Dr. Shuyu Li visiting scientist from Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, a visiting scientist from Chongqing Medical University, worked on understanding the genetic predisposition of mice strains to developing diabetic kidney disease. Dr. Li established key methods for TF binding assays in the lab. She is currently working in the Department of Pathology at the School of Traditional Chinese Medicine, BUCM.

Dr. Qin Wang visiting scientist from College of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Chinese Medicine, Southwest University, Chongqing, China. She trained in basic principles, methods and technologies of laboratory research in the School of Pharmacy, Jiangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China. Whilst in the Daehn lab, Dr. Wang worked with our models of DKD and identified important pathology among the different strains. She helped develop key mouse protocols. She is currently leading human clinical trials with traditional Chinese medicines in DKD.

Dr. Gabriella Casalena is an alumnus of the University of Bologna – Italy where she graduated with honors in Molecular Biology. She pursued her doctoral research at the same university earning a PhD in Biochemistry. Before joining the lab in 2009 she was a visiting student at University of Kentucky, Lexington. Gabriella was involved in the investigation of the podocytes-endothelium crosstalk with a particular focus on the role of mitochondria (dys)function in the initiation and propagation of pathological pathways. Dr. Casalena a the Scientific Research Manager at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.