Benjamin Duane Humphreys BA, MD, PhD

Dr. Humphreys is Chief of the Division of Nephrology at Washington University in St. Louis and the Joseph P. Friedman Professor of Renal Diseases in Medicine. Dr. Humphreys’ lab focuses on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of kidney injury and repair. They have developed genetic fate mapping approaches and used these to define critical progenitor cell populations in both acute and chronic kidney disease. These studies have shown that surviving epithelial cells are responsible for the repair of acutely damaged nephrons. By contrast, in chronic kidney disease and fibrotic diseases of other organs, interstitial stromal cells such as pericytes and fibroblasts are the primary progenitor population for activated myofibroblasts, the scar-forming cell type.