Exploring Molecular Pathways to Improve Kidney Health with Louis Delinois
For Louis Delinois, curiosity has always been the starting point. Born and raised in Haiti, he remembers being captivated by simple scientific questions that few around him could answer: why it rains, where rainbows come from, how the body works. Those early curiosities, nurtured by a television show that explained natural phenomena through storytelling and a pediatrician who encouraged his questions, set him on a lifelong path toward science.
Today, as a postdoctoral researcher in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at Stony Brook Medicine, Delinois is exploring the molecular changes that drive kidney injury and chronic kidney disease, with an eye toward developing new therapeutic strategies to prevent disease progression.
Stony Brook’s Open Research Environment
Delinois is part of the Piret Laboratory, a collaborative and interdisciplinary research group within the Renaissance School of Medicine. The lab’s open layout, where multiple principal investigators share space, fosters daily interaction among scientists at different stages of their careers. “We have six PIs in the same lab,” he said. “It’s open to everybody to ask questions and find help when you have a problem. Everybody’s always available.”
He describes Stony Brook as a uniquely diverse and welcoming research environment, both scientifically and culturally. “One of the things I enjoy most about Stony Brook is the diversity,” Delinois said. “When people come from different places and have different backgrounds, they approach questions differently. That diversity of perspective makes science stronger.”
He also highlighted the supportive community he’s found across campus, from his colleagues in nephrology to the inclusive atmosphere of centers such as the Center for Inclusive Education (CIE). “Whenever I go there, it’s a very welcoming environment, and incredibly diverse,” he noted. “It’s one of the places where I feel most at home.”
Fighting Kidney Disease at Its Source
The Piret Lab investigates how kidney cells respond to injury at the molecular and metabolic levels, particularly how disturbances in amino-acid and energy metabolism contribute to the onset of acute kidney injury (AKI) and its progression to chronic kidney disease (CKD). These conditions affect millions worldwide, and once kidney damage advances to later stages, treatment options become limited.
Delinois focuses on how the body processes branched-chain amino acids such as leucine, isoleucine, and valine, and how impairments in this breakdown influence kidney function under stress. “We are trying to understand what happens in the early phase of kidney injury,” he explained. “If you can detect and treat it early, you can stop it from becoming chronic.”
His current work involves using genetic and biochemical approaches to study key enzyme subunits responsible for metabolizing these amino acids. By identifying how molecular disruptions worsen kidney injury, he hopes to help design small-molecule compounds that could protect or restore kidney function. The lab is also collaborating on high-throughput screening projects to test thousands of potential compounds efficiently. “It’s still early,” he said, “but the goal is to design and identify new molecules that could one day be tested clinically.”
A Global Journey in Scientific Curiosity
Delinois earned his undergraduate degree in Haiti before pursuing his PhD in chemistry at the University of Puerto Rico. There, he worked on engineering hybrid proteins capable of delivering cytochrome c directly into cancer cells, a promising strategy for reactivating programmed cell death in tumor tissue. He later joined MD Anderson Cancer Center as a postdoctoral fellow, where he studied how immune cells form neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) during inflammation and disease.
These experiences gave him a deep appreciation for both discovery and perseverance. “Failure is part of science,” he said. “It’s not the end. It’s another way to understand the situation. Even when your hypothesis is wrong, you’ve learned something new that helps the next person in the field.”
As he continues his work at Stony Brook, Delinois remains motivated by the same spirit of curiosity that first inspired him as a child. He hopes that the discoveries made in the Piret Lab will contribute to earlier detection and treatment of kidney disease and ultimately improve lives around the world. “The principal role of a basic researcher is to produce knowledge that can be translated into the clinic,” he said. “That’s what we’re doing here: building knowledge that can have a real-world impact.”