- Professor, Department of Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Katalin Susztak is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Renal Electrolyte and Hypertension and Professor of Genetics at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, where she directs the Penn/CHOP Kidney Innovation Center. She received her MD and PhD from Semmelweis University in Budapest and has built her career at the intersection of human genetics, single-cell biology, and clinical nephrology.
Dr. Susztak’s laboratory has produced foundational single-cell and multi-omic atlases of the human kidney and identified APOL1 risk variants and their cellular consequences as central drivers of kidney disease disparities in populations of African ancestry. Her group integrates genetics, multi-omics, and machine learning to define disease subtypes and identify therapeutic targets across chronic kidney disease, including immune-mediated and autoimmune nephropathies.
An elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, Dr. Susztak is one of the most influential kidney scientists of her generation. She is a senior collaborator within the Penn Colton Center for Autoimmunity and the Institute for Immunology and Immune Health, where her work informs efforts to understand autoimmune contributions to kidney injury.
