Prof. Uta Kunter

RWTH Aachen University, Germany

Uta Kunter is vice director of the Division of Nephrology and Immunology at the University of Aachen, Germany. She originally trained at Hannover Medical School, where she received an award for outstanding doctoral thesis (tumor biology) in 1997. Discovering her special interest in renal diseases and microsurgical techniques, Uta started her postdoc investigating mechanisms of chronic rejection in experimental renal transplantation. In 2000, Uta began a postdoctoral research fellowship at Harvard Medical School, Center for Immunobiology Research (Prof. Christiane Ferran), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, USA. In 2003, she was granted a Lise-Meitner research scholarship of the German Federal Land North-Rhine Westfalia. In 2007, Uta was awarded the Carl-Ludwig Nachwuchspreis (i.e. young investigator award) for her scientific work on mesenchymal stem cells in experimental renal diseases. Over the years, Uta's research interests encompassed both basic research and clinical studies, i.e. the role of angiogenesis in progression of renal diseases, cytoprotective genes in models of transplant rejection, renal fibrosis and benefits as well as unwanted side effects of experimental stem cell therapies.
Today, her particular interests in the field of internal medicine and nephrology are infectious diseases, esp. urinary tract infections. She has written several educational articles on this subject, contributed to textbooks and a government-funded project on educational podcasts.
Uta is a member of the German Society for Internal Medicine and the German Society of Nephrology and served on several program committees.
She was appointed a member of the North Rhine Westfalian Commission for Quality in Dialysis in 2022. Her scientific work encompasses about 54 original papers, reviews and editorials, plus 5 book chapters.