![\"EwelinaHejenkowska\"](\"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/390\/2026\/07\/EwelinaHejenkowska-300x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\nUVA BIMS PhD student Ewelina Hejenkowska was featured in UVAHealth Children\u2019s Monthly Matters, July edition for her research.<\/p>\n
Here is the excerpt from their July publication:<\/p>\n
Nephrology<\/p>\n
We spotlight major advance from the laboratory of Dr. Agnes Swiatecka-Urban. Her team has grown human kidney organoids: three-dimensional clusters of living cells, only a few millimeters across, that self-organize in culture into miniature working models of a real kidney, reproducing many of the organ’s specialized structures and functions. These organoids are built from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), ordinary cells reprogrammed to an embryonic-like state from something as simple as a blood sample and then coaxed to become kidney tissue. Led by BIMS graduate student Ewelina Hejenkowska, the project uses these living models to investigate the mechanisms of nephrotic syndrome, a serious kidney disease in which the organ’s delicate filters leak large amounts of protein into the urine. The long-term goal is to generate organoids from the cells of individual patients, creating patient-specific “kidneys in a dish” that allow the team to study each person’s disease directly and work toward treatments tailored to that individual. It is a vivid example of how stem cell science is opening a path toward truly personalized care for kidney disease.<\/p>\n
Ewelina is also the first author on an educational review on congenital and infantile nephrotic syndrome, published June 1 this year which can be found at this link:<\/p>\n
https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s00467-026-07407-2<\/p>\n
Congratulations to Ewelina and the lab of Dr. Agnes Swiatecka-Urban on this major advance!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UVA BIMS PhD student Ewelina Hejenkowska was featured in UVAHealth Children\u2019s Monthly Matters, July edition for her research. Here is the excerpt from their July publication: Nephrology We spotlight major advance from the laboratory of Dr. Agnes Swiatecka-Urban. Her team has grown human kidney organoids: three-dimensional clusters of living cells, only a few millimeters across, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2214,"featured_media":5566,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-5565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-highlights","tag-department-news"],"acf":false,"yoast_head":"\n