Mentoring in Kidney Health

Dr. Melamed is an internationally known kidney health investigator and award-winning mentor. She has mentored 16 post-doctoral fellows in Internal Medicine and Pediatric Nephrology. Her earliest trainees currently hold R-level grants from the NIH. She has published over 140 papers in the medical literature and has been continuously funded by the NIDDK since 2007. Her research includes important work on metabolic acidosis in kidney and bone health and innovative models of care in kidney disease including group-based care and the use of peer mentors for patients requiring in-center hemodialysis treatment to decrease hospitalizations. She is currently an MPI on 2 R01 grants and a U01 grant. One of the R01s is secondary analysis of biomarkers of volume expansion and vascular calcification combining data from 3 separate (n=395) randomized, placebo-controlled trials of sodium bicarbonate in patients with kidney disease. The other grants aim to use community health workers to increase use of home dialysis modalities and kidney transplant listing in New York City. Dr. Melamed is committed to mentoring junior investigators. She has attended multiple career development workshops on mentoring and will use the funding from this award to continue building her skills through workshops, intensive one-on-one mentoring of trainees, and meeting with an Advisory Committee of seasoned mentors. Her commitment to training junior investigators is evidenced by her writing and obtaining funding for several training grants including being the contact MPI for 2 years for an NIDDK-funded U2C/TL1 award entitled the “New York Consortium for Training in Kidney, Urological and Hematological Research”, a consortium that includes the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook. There is an additional pathway program for undergraduate students at the City University of New York. This training grant, which includes 7 post-doctoral fellow and 3 pre-doctoral fellow training spots, brings together the 4 institutions to improve collaborations in these important research areas. She has access to an excellent candidate pool at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and has successfully mentored multiple post-doctoral fellows, including several Pediatric Nephrologists, to academic careers in Nephrology. In sum, Dr. Melamed is an established, award-winning mentor with a successful history of mentoring junior researchers. This award will protect her time to be able to mentor additional trainees.