Nicholas Ferrell
Assistant Professor
Internal Medicine
Academic information
- Department: Internal Medicine
Research interests
- Tissue and extracellular matrix mechanics in chronic kidney disease
- Biophysics of glomerular filtration
- Bioengineered therapeutic approaches to treat acute and chronic kidney disease
About
Biography
I received my bachelor’s and PhD degrees in mechanical and biomedical engineering, both from The Ohio State University. After a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute, I was on the faculty at Vanderbilt University Medical Center from 2012-2021. I returned to Ohio State in 2021 as a faculty member in the Division of Nephrology. My lab applies engineering approaches to study fundamental mechanisms of kidney disease. We are particularly interested in how biophysical factors regulate glomerular function and how this contributes to development of proteinuria in chronic kidney disease. Additionally, we use micro and nanotechnology to model kidney physiology and develop novel therapeutics to target kidney disease.
Credentials
Education
- Postdoctoral Fellowship
- Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, United States
- PhD - Biomedical Engineering
- The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States
- BS - Mechanical Engineering
- The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States
Research
Research interests
- Tissue and extracellular matrix mechanics in chronic kidney disease
- Biophysics of glomerular filtration
- Bioengineered therapeutic approaches to treat acute and chronic kidney disease
Awards and honors
- NSF CAREER Award
- American Society of Nephrology Carl W. Gottschalk Research Scholar Award
- American Society for Artificial Internal Organs (ASAIO) Willem J. Kolff/Dan B. Olsen Award
Active funding
- NSF CAREER Award (PI): The role of basement membrane stiffness in regulating filtration
- NIH/NIGMS R01 (Co-I): Basement membrane homeostasis and repair
- Center for Medical and Engineering Innovation Pilot Grant (Co-PI): Cellular delivery of engineered extracellular vesicles for acute kidney injury
- College of Medicine Dean’s Intramural Funding Program (Co-PI): A provisional extracellular matrix drives AKI-CKD transition