Kelly Anne Hyndman

Kelly Anne Hyndman, PhD Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Nephrology, Section of Cardio-Renal Physiology and Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Hyndman received her PhD in 2008 in Zoology from the University of Florida under the mentorship of Dr. David Evans. Her doctoral work focused on elucidating the evolution and physiology of the endothelin system in fishes. Endothelin is a potent vasoconstrictor but also an important factor in the kidney that promotes salt excretion. From here, she completed post-doctoral research at the Medical College of Georgia under the mentorship of Dr. Jennifer Pollock. Here she tested the hypothesis that endothelin and nitric oxide work in the kidney to promote salt excretion. She found that if you cannot activate the endothelin system or nitric oxide system that a salt sensitive hypertension will develop. Now as a PI she has two focused areas of research: 1) Determining the physiological significance of the post-translational modification called lysine acetylation in the kidney particularly as it may affect fluid-electrolyte balance. 2) Determining if histone deacetylase enzymes are dysfunction in acute kidney injury leading to chronic kidney disease. Her first International Conference on Endothelin was in 2005 at Park City, Utah (ET-9) and has enjoyed every ET conference since then.