Weining Lu

Dr. Weining Lu is a Principal Investigator and Associate Professor of Medicine, Pathology, and Laboratory Medicine at Boston University and Boston Medical Center. He is also the Primary Mentor for medical students, graduate students, undergraduate students, fellows, and postdocs in the Nephrology Section Department of Medicine. Dr. Lu’s laboratory focuses on basic and translational research in nephrology and genetics, including kidney development, congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract (CAKUT), podocyte biology and injury, pericyte biology, and renal fibrosis, ROBO/SLIT and ZEB signaling, pre-clinical animal models of kidney disease, as well as the discovery of new biomarkers, artificial-intelligence-based pathology tools to improve diagnosis and clinical trials and novel drug development for chronic kidney disease. His significant scientific contributions in the field of nephrology and genetics include: (1) discovering ROBO2 as one of the causative genes for CAKUT and VUR (OMIM 610878), (2) identifying SLIT2/ROBO2 signaling as a novel drug target for proteinuric kidney diseases, which negatively regulates nephrin signaling, nonmuscle myosin IIA signaling and podocyte adhesions in podocyte biology and injury, (3) creating the first animal model for autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (PKD1), and (4) discovering ZEB2 as one of the causative genes for glomerulocystic kidney disease and its essential role in kidney stromal progenitor cell differentiation and renal fibrosis. In recognition of his seminal contribution to the development of a potential new drug for chronic kidney disease in collaboration with Pfizer, Dr. Lu was named the 2019 Boston University Innovator of the Year, an award bestowed annually on a faculty member who “translates his/her world-class research into inventions and innovations that benefit humankind”. Dr. Lu is the Chair of the Core Oversight Advisory Committee in the Department of Medicine, a Co-Director of the BU Clinical and Translational Institute (CTSI) R-Award Grant Writing Workshop, and a voting member of the Boston University Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC). He is also a fellow of the American Society of Nephrology and the International Society of Nephrology. Dr. Lu is an Academic Editor of the scientific journal PLOS ONE and a member of the NIH grant review study sections of various grant mechanisms, including R01, R21, R03, F32, RC1, RC2, RC4, R13, R15, U01, UH2, UH3, U24, U54, P01, P20, and P50.

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