Department of Medicine

University of Pittsburgh

Kevin Ho, MD

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Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh

Director, UPMC Dialysis Services Network

Office: S915 Scaife Hall
3550 Terrace Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15261
 
Phone: 412-802-8652
Fax: 412-802-6852
E-mail: hok@upmc.edu

Education
A.B., Biological Sciences with Honors, Harvard University, 1982
M.D., Columbia Univ. College of Physicians & Surgeons, 1987

Training
Internship & Residency, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, 1990
Nephrology Fellowship, Brigham & Women's Hosp., Harvard Med. Sch., 1994

Area of Specialization/Research Interest  
Chronic kidney disease
Hemodialysis, endstage renal disease
Continuous quality initiatives in chronic kidney disease
Diabetic nephropathy, molecular & genetic basis
Molecular physiology of renal ion transport
ROMK, ATP-sensitive, inward rectifier potassium channels
 

Profile
Dr. Kevin Ho is the Director of the UPMC Dialysis Services Network for outpatient hemodialysis, as well as, Medical Co-Director of the DCI (Dialysis Clinic, Inc.) Oakland & Wilkinsburg dialysis centers with an emphasis on continuous quality initiatives and protocol standardization. He was previously an Assistant Professor of Medicine, Renal Division at Washington University in St. Louis and a staff nephrologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital until 2000. In 1992 he discovered the family of two transmembrane domain potassium channels, inward rectifier (Kir) potassium channels, by expression cloning and proposing the molecular architecture of the initial member, ROMK1 (Kir1.1a), while working under the mentorship of Dr. Steven C. Hebert at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. The ROMK potassium channel in the Loop of Henle and distal nephron is the principal mechanism for urinary potassium secretion and underlies potassium homeostasis.

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