Welcome to the Kidney Research Center at the University of Cologne, Germany. An ever-increasing proportion of our population ... is affected by renal disease and hypertension. The causes of these renal pathologies are poorly understood but genetic as well as environmental factors clearly play a role. In our Research Center we study the molecular principles underlying kidney disorders ranging from proteinuric kidney diseases and cystic renal disease over age-related pathologies to renal cancer using genetic disorders as a model. We are using methods of cell biology, live imaging, biochemistry and molecular and systems biology as well as mouse models and the model organisms C. elegans and Drosophila melanogaster to unravel the molecular mechanism involved in kidney diseases. The Kidney Research Center is part of the Department II of Internal Medicine at the University of Cologne (Chairman Prof. Dr. Thomas Benzing) and affiliated with the CECAD Research Institute and the Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne. read more