Researcher Spotlight: Ariel Gomez, MD, Studies the Mechanisms Underlying Disease
How do cells understand their role and function? What prompts them to change? It’s an existential problem that shapes the way our bodies respond to illness and disease. These are the questions at the center of the research being done by Ariel Gomez, MD.
Cellular fate, or a cell's future identities, shapes our body's response to triggers like disease. But many of these pathways are still being discovered.
In collaboration with Maria Luisa Sequeira-Lopez, MD, and Brian Belyea, MD, Gomez is defining how renin cells are formed, how they change, and the pathologies that can affect them.
Below, Gomez shares more details on his current research and potential applications.
How nature works, cell fate, and children's health
The very thrill of discovery, figuring out how nature works, be it how a cell moves through a surface, how it changes its identity, et cetera. And then apply that knowledge to the care of people, particularly children.
My name is Ariel Gomez. I'm the Director of the Child Health Research Center, and the Director of the Center of Excellence in Pediatric Nephrology.
I try to understand how cells know who they are, and this is very relevant for understanding disease because cells change their identity when they are sick, or when they are trying to defend the organism against a disease.
When a cell doesn't know who it is, this immediately results in the potential for disease. If we were able to revert a cell to its original state. And just think cancer,
for instance, or other diseases of the kidney, and so forth. Then we may be able to solve disease by working on what we call cell fate.
What are you working on right now?
The renin cell baroreceptor. Together with my colleague Dr. Sequeira Lopez, we are studying a rare cell type in the kidney, the JG cell, which produces a hormone called renin. Renin controls blood pressure and fluid homeostasis. The cells have a built-in mechanism to sense pressure. When blood pressure is low, the cells release renin to the circulation; when pressure is high, renin release is diminished.
We recently identified the structure of the so-called baroreceptor, but there are still numerous aspects to resolve regarding the signals and receptors involved. One candidate would have been the Piezo receptors recently identified as touch receptors. Unfortunately, Piezo receptors are poorly expressed in JG cells and their deletion exclusively in JG cells does not affect blood pressure or renin levels. This indicates that Piezo channels are not involved in the pressure sensing of the JG cell. So, we are looking at other potential mechanisms.
We are also working on concentric arterial hypertrophy, a condition that occurs when any of the renin angiotensin system genes are deleted, or when animals are given long term treatment with angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors. This is important because more than 1.3 billion people are hypertensive, and many are treated with renin-angiotensin inhibitors. We are studying the mechanisms that underlie this severe vascular disease.
What are the most intriguing potential clinical applications of your work?
That we may find targets of hypertension and vascular disease so that we may preserve both cardiovascular and kidney health.
What made you choose UVA Health as the place to do your research?
Because it is a very collegial environment with outstanding investigators throughout.
What do you wish more people knew about your area of research?
That the JG cell is a fascinating piece of evolutionary engineering.
How did you become interested in your area of research?
My interactions with giants in the field, like Michael Peach, and Bob Carey, both at UVA Health.
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