Robert Bronstein Receives Grant to Advance Kidney Disease Research

Robert Bronstein, a faculty research investigator in the Department of Medicine’s Division of Nephrology and Hypertension in the Renaissance School of Medicine (RSOM) at Stony Brook University, has received a grant from KidneyCure to advance his research on the kidney glomerulus, the central filtration unit of the organ.

Bronstein is one of 23 early career kidney disease researchers nationally to receive a 2025 award from KidneyCure. He is one of only nine researchers to be awarded under the Transition to Independence Grants Program, which supports young investigators in launching their independent research careers.

KidneyCure describes these grantees as future leaders in nephrology research “who are making discoveries that will improve the lives of people with kidney diseases.”

Bronstein’s research program centers on pathologies that affect the kidney glomerulus. When damage is done to this key filtration unit, it limits normal functioning of the kidney and eventually leads to end-stage kidney disease.

“Overall, our work aims to understand the different cellular players that make up this filtration unit in the kidney glomerulus and how they are adversely affected during instances of pathology, which we hope will lead to the development of novel therapeutic approaches that will preserve kidney function and quality of life,” Bronstein said.

Recent studies of how glomerular parietal epithelial cells contribute to the progression of crescentic glomerulonephritis have uncovered a role for proteins in the AP-1 transcription factor complex within the kidney, Bronstein added. He believes the award will open new avenues of research into how AP-1 might be regulating parietal epithelial cell dynamics in human pathologies such as focal segmental glomerulosclerosis.

The grant from KidneyCure provides Bronstein with a total of $200,000 to be used over the span of two years (July 2025 – June 2027). His research is conducted in the Mallipattu Lab, where he has worked since 2020.

For more about Bronstein’s research, read this Q & A.