June Fabian, MBBCh, MPharm
Countries: Latvia, South Africa, Uganda
I am a clinician scientist with a special interest in the epidemiology of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in Africa. I am a founding member of the African Research on Kidney Disease (ARK) Consortium which includes centres of research excellence in Malawi, South Africa, and Uganda, with strong ties to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK. I trained as an MD, specialised as a physician, followed by a subspecialty in nephrology at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. My doctoral work was anchored in the rural SA/MRC Wits Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance site, Mpumalanga province, where we determined the population prevalence and associated risk factors for CKD. We also evaluated performance of creatinine and cystatin C based eGFR equations using plasma excretion of iohexol as the reference GFR - the largest study of its kind from Africa. We showed that creatinine is a poor biomarker for eGFR, and that we are underestimating the prevalence of CKD in African populations. Our findings have profound implications for individual care and population health in Africa. As the ARK Consortium, we are collaborating with colleagues at VIGH to better understand genetic risk associated with CKD incidence and progression in African populations, and facilitate comparison with different population groups in the USA.