Utilizing the Facilities of the Imaging Center
In June 2002, the IU Division of Nephrology received NIH funding to establish a George M. O'Brien Center for Advanced Renal Microscopic Analysis at the Indiana Center for Biological Microscopy. The primary goal of this Center is to develop new optical methodologies for investigators in Nephrologic and Urologic Research. Approaches include intravital multiphoton microscopy, 3-dimensional imaging and quantitative microscopic analyses.

An interdependent goal of this project is to assist NIH-funded and other investigators in implementing these new techniques for their specific research needs, either in their laboratories, or utilizing the facilities of the Center.

Past and Present O'Brien Center Collaborators

Agneta Richter-Dahlfors, PhD, Lisa Mansson & Keira Melican
Karolinska Institutet - Stockholm, Sweden

Microinjection of bacteria directly into the proximal tubule lumens of the rat kidney. Utilizing two-photon microscopy, visualize bacterial localization within the kidney during pyelonephritis using the Biorad 2-Photon.

Deborah Hyink, PhD
Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY

Imaging vascular patterning in the developing kidney in living embryonic mice using the Zeiss 2-Photon.

Richard Quigg, MD & Brad Hack
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Intravital imaging of 2.5P Cre mice showing immunological diseases affecting the podocyte using the Zeiss 2-Photon.

Rajeev Rohatgi, MD and Lisa M. Satlin, MD
Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY

To determine how a relatively brief [Ca2+]I transient elicited by an increase in luminal flow impart information leading to a sustained increase in tubular K secretion, as well as seeing if there is pulsatile flow in the cortical distal nephron (CCD).

Lois J. Arend, PhD, MD
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH

Image embryonic mouse kidneys treated with inhibitors of sphingosine kinase to determine the intrarenal location of apoptosis that occurs with decreased endogenous sphingosine-1-phosphate production.

Roy Zent, MD
Vanderbilt Medical Center

Using two-photon microscopy, identify the role of integrin beta 1 in glomerular development, specifically podocyte development.

Lisa Guay-Woodford, MD
Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham

To define the ductal plate malformation in cpk mice as a 3D architectural defect and to characterize the variability in the defect in F2 cpk mice as a quantitative trait.

Paul Epstein, PhD
University of Louisville at Louisville

P. Darwin Bell, PhD
Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham

To examine protein localization, organelle distribution and cytoskeletal structure and evaluate membrane fluidity in collecting duct cells from the orpk mouse model of Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease using the Zeiss 2-Photon.

David Woo, PhD
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Utilizing multi-photon microscopy to visualize and obtain detailed cellular and sub-cellular immuno-localization data of the pcy gene product in both the pcy mouse and the Cy rat.

Leileata Russo, PhD and Wayne Comper, PhD, DSc
Harvard University at Cambridge, MA  and Monash University, Australia

Mukat Sharma
Medical College of Wisconsin at Milwaukee

Maria de Fatima Vatimo
University of Sao Paulo, Brazil – School of Nursing

Ryoichi Imamura, MD
Osaka University, Japan – Department of Urology

Oliver Smithies, PhD
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2007 Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine

Christof Westenfelder, MD
University of Utah at Salt Lake City

Mark Rosenberg, MD
University of Minnesota at Minneapolis

Fadi Lakkis, MD
University of Pittsburgh

Roger Wiggins, M.B., B.Ch.
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor