ASCI / Emerging-Generation Awards, 2023

Fabian Maximilian Bock, MD, PhD recently completed a clinical nephrology fellowship, a T32-funded research period, and is currently an Instructor funded by the American Society of Nephrology Ben J. Lipps fellowship. During an active PhD research phase in medical school, Dr. Bock developed expertise in renal epithelial cell culture models, mouse kidney phenotyping, and various molecular biology techniques to assess the mechanistic role of target proteins focusing on coagulation and inflammation in diabetic nephropathy (first or co-first author publications in PNAS, JASN, Kidney International, Scientific Reports and co-authorships in Blood, Nature Communications, Communications Biology). While completing internal medicine residency and clinical nephrology fellowship in Vanderbilt’s Physician Scientist Training program, he noticed that the clinical tools to combat kidney disease are very limited and translational efforts largely focus on limiting fibrosis and inflammation. This is because there is poor understanding of the fundamental principles that hold the renal epithelium together. This led Dr. Bock to seek out basic mechanisms of how the kidney epithelium forms and functions and joined Roy Zent’s lab who is an expert on integrin signaling in kidney development. Dr. Bock has focused on studying the integrin downstream target Rac1, a small Rho GTPase and a key molecular switch controlling actin cytoskeletal organization. They have discovered novel aspects of Rac1 in promoting renal epithelial integrity, morphology, and cytoskeletal stability (Bock et al. J Cell Biol, 2021) and Dr. Bock currently studies its role in kidney epithelial repair. Using advanced imaging approaches, he has found that Rac1 is required for the complex actin-dependent morphological transformations of cell division in a repairing kidney tubular epithelium. With this work, Dr. Bock recently won the ‘’Best Oral Presentation’’ and “People’s Choice” Awards at the ASN Basic Research Forum 2022. He is also an Attending Physician at the Nashville VA on their dialysis and renal consult services.