UPMC Children’s Pediatric Nephrology Faculty Appointed Professors

UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Division of Pediatric Nephrology faculty members, Jacqueline Ho, MD, MS, Division chief, and Sunder Sims-Lucas, PhD, were both promoted to professor of Pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in August, and July 2025, respectively.

About Dr. Ho

Dr. Ho first joined the Division of Pediatric Nephrology at UPMC Children's in 2010 and was named Division chief in July 2022.

Dr. Ho’s research laboratory primarily investigates the causes of chronic kidney disease and renal failure precipitated through abnormal kidney and urinary tract development. She has focused her research efforts on understanding the role of microRNAs in kidney development and disease, with numerous recent papers showing how microRNAs work to regulate nephron progenitor proliferation and survival in the developing kidney.

Dr. Ho currently has multiple National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded R01 investigations in progress. In 2022, she received a Burroughs Welcome Fund grant to study how in-utero exposure to diabetes affects nephron formation in the kidney of the developing fetus.

Dr. Ho also is a coinvestigator on a NIH-funded U grant supporting the creation of the Pittsburgh Center for Training in Kidney, Urology, and Hematology (PCT-KUH). Additionally, Dr. Ho co-directs, alongside Dr. Sims-Lucas, the division’s NIH-supported University of Pittsburgh Summer Research Internship Program Kidney Workshop (SRIP-KiD).

Most recently, Dr. Ho was awarded a Snyder Family Foundation FIRST grant through the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Foundation to establish the scientific groundwork and evidence for a future NIH-designated Pediatric Center of Excellence in Nephrology (PCEN). The project supported by the FIRST grant is focused on neonatal acute kidney injury (AKI) and the development of new research tools, preclinical models, clinical data, and training resources in preparation for a 2026 NIH P50 PCEN application.

About Dr. Sims-Lucas

Dr. Sims-Lucas is a developmental biologist by training with a focus on acute kidney injury. He joined the Division of Pediatric Nephrology as a faculty member in 2013 after doing postdoctoral research at UPMC Children’s that was focused on fibroblast growth factor receptors in kidney development.

His NIH R01-supported laboratory currently has multiple lines of research in progress that involve vascular biology, metabolism, and repair mechanisms related to acute kidney injury. One area of study is related to the family of Sirtuin genes, and specifically the Sirtuin 5 gene, and their potential role in mediating protection against AKI. He is also a coinvestigator on one of Dr. Ho’s R01 grants examining microRNAs 17~92 in the renal endothelium during AKI. More recently his lab has been investigating the possibility of using dicarboxylic acids as metabolic therapy for protecting against AKI in a collaborative NIH-R01-funded project with Eric Goetzman, PhD, from the Division of Genetic and Genomic Medicine.

In addition to his basic science research, Dr. Sims-Lucas leads the SRIP-KiD (along with Dr. Ho and colleagues from the adult Renal-Electrolyte Division), as well as leading the Administrative Core of the PCT-KUH project.

Dr. Sims-Lucas also currently co-leads (with Neil Hukriede, PhD, professor of Cell Biology), one of the projects related to the Synder Family Foundation FIRST grant focused on using human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived kidney organoids to model neonatal AKI and test potential therapeutic interventions.