Mark Okusa, MD. A Revolutionary Approach: Treating Kidney Disease with Ultrasound @UVASchoolofMedicine

Uploaded September 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

Mark Okusa, MD, is a Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Nephrology
Transcript
I'm a physician scientist, and what that means is that I take care of patients and I conduct research. What I love most is that the questions that I explore in the laboratory help me understand diseases of the kidney that I see in the hospital. This connection between the two allow me to be a better physician and a better scientist. I'm Dr. Mark Okusa. I'm Professor of Medicine, Chief of the Division of Nephrology. I specialize in kidney diseases and in particular, acute kidney injury. My research then focuses on how to understand better mechanisms of this disorder and how to devise therapeutic options to treat acute kidney injury. One of the main mechanisms of acute kidney injury is inflammation. What we’ve discovered is that the brain can control inflammation through the activation of specific nerves. What we've discovered is that we can activate these nerves, not with drugs or with surgery, but with simple harmless ultrasound from a clinical ultrasound machine. This can then block inflammation and then block acute kidney injury. We are now involved using this approach in clinical trials at the University of Virginia.

Mark Okusa, MD. A Revolutionary Approach: Treating Kidney Disease with Ultrasound

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