Alexander Grabner, MD

 I am a medical doctor (MD) with more than 7 years of research experience studying cell biology and pathophysiology in the context of renal disease. The overall goal of my laboratory is to analyze molecular mechanisms that contribute to chronic kidney disease (CKD) and the cardiorenal syndrome. We are interested in characterizing novel signaling pathways that are involved in the development of cardiac remodeling and heart failure, inflammation and that lead to progression of renal disease. Recently, we have demonstrated that fibroblast growth factor (FGF) 23 induces left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and that these pro-hypertrophic effects are mediated by FGF receptor (FGFR) 4. Furthermore, we have shown that FGF23 directly targets hepatocytes and thus contributes to systemic inflammation in animal models of CKD. With our ongoing work, we aim to determine, if FGF23 mediated activation of FGFR4 can contribute to other pathophysiologic alterations (e.g. progression of CKD, anemia, inflammation) as seen in CKD.

As a MD performing translational science, I’m highly interested in collaborations with basic as well as clinical scientists with a variety of scientific backgrounds. I firmly believe that collaborating with experts from different disciplines ultimately will help us advancing translational science, especially in order to understand complex molecular pathomechanisms, as found in CKD. Since I work as a basic scientist in a department of medicine, most of my research is and will be associated with relevant clinical problems and questions.