Dr. David Cherney

Award: ACD-KRESCENT New Investigator Award
Institution: University of Toronto
Year: 2010-2013

Lay Summary

Dr. David Cherney is a new investigator at the University of Toronto. He obtained his MD from McGill University and completed a clinical nephrology fellowship at the University of Toronto. He completed his Post-Doctoral Fellowship with Dr. Judy Miller at the Toronto General Hospital. The aim of Dr. Cherney’s work is to understand how diabetes affects kidney and blood vessel function. Diabetes mellitus (DM) damages blood vessels and is the leading cause of kidney failure. The factors that cause kidney and artery injury in DM include high blood sugars and stimulation of the renin angiotensin system (RAS). Activation of this hormone system leads to inflammation in both the kidney and blood vessels. Although the RAS can be blocked with medications such as angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEi) and ‘direct rennin inhibitors” (DRI) the effect of these medications, alone and in combination, on blood vessel function and on proteins that mediate kidney injury is unknown. The findings are expected to lead to new approaches to the management of diabetes mellitus.