Monica Carmosino - Editorial Board Member

Research areas: the kidney contains the body’s second largest number of different cell types, which together perform a great diversity of different functions that are required to maintain the body’s complex fluid and electrolyte homeostasis. A feature that unites all of the cell types in the post-glomerular nephron is that they are highly polarized; one surface being in contact with the urine and the other with interstitial fluid. This polarity is an absolute prerequisite for the physiologically critical vectorial transport of ions, proteins, water and other molecules across the renal epithelial cells. The generation and maintenance of this polarity requires highly specialized subcellular machinery to bring these transport proteins to their appropriate sites of action. This is a dynamic process, involving regulated recycling between the cell surface and intracellular vesicular structures. The significance of this research is that a large number of renal diseases are now recognized to be associated with aberrant trafficking and regulation of these transporters that may be associated with failure of normal recycling from the membrane, mis-targeting away from the correct cell surface compartment or mis-direction to the wrong intracellular compartment.