Hato Lab

The long-term goal of the Hato Laboratory is to develop targeted therapies for acute kidney injury in sepsis. Sepsis-induced kidney injury is associated with high mortality and there is no specific therapy available at the bedside beyond supportive care. The lack of therapeutic options is due in part to incomplete understanding of the temporal evolution of sepsis pathology. Ongoing research in the laboratory focuses on defining the timeline of sepsis-induced kidney injury using a combination of imaging and sequencing tools. In particular, investigators in the laboratory are interested in understanding the molecular link between the early-phase inflammation and late-phase organ shutdown. In parallel, the laboratory aims to develop novel therapeutic approaches. For example, they have reported the first example of a protein cage nanoparticle that can be targeted to renal proximal tubules through glomerular filtration, and an antisense oligonucleotide that targets an upstream open reading frame to boost translation in the kidney.