Dianne McKay, MD
Dianne McKay, MD is a physician/scientist with extensive expertise in clinical and investigational kidney disease and kidney transplantation. She is a Professor at Scripps Research where she leads an active NIH-funded laboratory that studies ways to protect kidneys from ischemic and immunologic injury. She holds a dual appointment in the Division of Cellular and Organ Transplantation at Scripps Clinic where she cares for patients before and after their kidney transplant and where she is the Director of Renal Research.
After clinical training in Nephrology and Transplantation at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and post-doctoral training in Immunology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, she established her basic science laboratory at Scripps Research. She has maintained a strong clinical presence, having been the Medical Director of the Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program at UCSD, the Director of Renal Research at Scripps Clinic and the President of the American Society of Transplantation.
​
Her laboratory focuses extensively on innate immunity and tissue injury in models of acute kidney injury. The primary focus of work in the laboratory is on immunologic mechanisms of ischemia-induced tissue injury with a particular interest in stress-responsive signaling in renal ischemia/reperfusion injury.
The Team
A longstanding passion of our laboratory is training of young scientists and physicians in immunology and transplantation science. We have mentored numerous undergraduate and graduate students and post-doctoral fellows who have gone on to productive careers in academia and in industry. We have also trained numerous predoctoral students who have entered medical school and pursued careers as physician/scientists.
Sean DeWolf
Scientific Collaborator
Dr. DeWolf was born and raised in Oakland, CA. After high school, he left the California sunshine for the east coast, where he attended Villanova University. He spent the latter two years of his undergraduate education studying B cell development in a basic science lab, which ultimately proved to be the beginning of a great passion for bench research and immunology. After graduation he spent a year in southern Mexico before returning to California for his medical school at UCSD. He began working in the McKay lab as a second year med student, studying how innate immunity initiated and propagated acute kidney injury. He ultimately became a pulmonary and critical care physician after completing both his residency and fellowship at UCSD. His current research interest is the role innate immunity plays in how acute kidney injury can lead to and worsen lung injury in the ICU. In his spare time, he enjoys going on hikes with his wife and baby, playing golf, and visiting his friends and family in the Bay Area.
Alana Hawkes
Senior Research Technician
Alana moved to San Diego in 1997 and graduated from UCSD with a BS in biology. She joined the McKay lab in 2002 at TSRI and has never looked back! She made the move with the lab to UCSD in 2012 and back to Scripps Research in 2018. In the lab, she mostly keeps busy with microsurgeries, assays and keeping an eye over the lab and lab folks. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, hiking, cooking/baking, all things beach, and spending time with her husband and two daughters.
Diana Gorial
Research Technician
Diana was born and raised in San Diego, CA. She earned her BS in Molecular Cell Biology and Physiology from CSU Long Beach; there she joined a lab studying the basic cellular processes driving development in Drosophila melanogaster and developed an interest for bench research. She enjoys the beach, hiking, and traveling.
Stephanie Almeida
Postdoctoral Associate
Born in Brazil, Dr. Stephanie has a degree in biomedical sciences. She has experience with histocompatibility and exams pre and post-transplant. In 2018, she received a master's degree at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), in the field of inflammatory response to allografts, focusing on the importance of the HLA repertoire in transplantation. Recently (2023), she received her title of doctor in biochemistry and immunology at the same university with research focused on the impact of Cytomegalovirus infection in transplant patients with an in silico and in vitro approach. Currently, she is a postdoctoral fellow at the laboratory of Dr. Dianne McKay, working to bring new therapeutic approaches aimed at organ preservation. When she is not doing science, she likes to go to the gym, exercise outdoors, cook, watch movies and series.
Bella Posner
Intern
Isabella is attending Tulane University and is studying neuroscience and art history. She joined the McKay lab in 2022 and looks forward to working throughout her undergraduate studies over summers and school breaks. In her free time, Isabella enjoys playing the saxophone and guitar - all musical genres, baking, skiing, watching movies, and spending time with her family, friends, and most importantly her French Bulldog Hazel.
​