Welcome to the O’Brien Lab

We are located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology. Our interests are broadly focused on the kidney and lie in understanding the regulation of kidney development, how the mature cell types are maintained, and how these programs are altered during disease. Specific research areas within the lab include:

• Innervation of the developing kidney and implications for form and function
• Patterning of the renal vasculature and its role in development
• Utilizing kidney organoids to model and investigate Wilms tumor development
• Novel mouse models to identify the podocyte foot process proteome in health and disease