Keck School of Medicine of USC researcher wins first Hearst Fellowship

Albert D. Kim, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the University of Southern California (USC), is the first Keck School of Medicine of USC researcher to win a Hearst Fellowship for his work investigating how to turn stem cells into nephrons, the functional units of the kidney.

Kim, who works in the laboratory of Andy McMahon, director of USC's stem cell research center, aims to isolate and generate a large number of kidney progenitor cells with the ultimate goal of repairing damaged adult kidneys.

Although researchers have recently used stem cells to form primitive kidney organoids, mystery shrouds the process and requirements of kidney formation in humans. By comparing kidney cells from human and mouse embryos with kidney cells produced in the laboratory, Kim will determine the optimal conditions and genetic profile for kidney formation.

The fellowship would have come as no surprise to Kim's grandfather, who predicted that his five-year-old grandson would grow up to become the family's first scientist.

"My grandfather noticed my curiosity about nature and animals, and he was a good judge of character," said Kim, whose parents both work in non-science-related fields -- as a florist, and as a graphic designer and landscape architect.

Kim, who grew up in Los Angeles' Koreatown, earned his bachelor's degree, master's degree and Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). While earning these degrees, he worked in the laboratory of David Traver, Ph.D., and studied the early formation of blood stem cells in zebrafish embryos.

When McMahon gave a guest lecture at UCSD, his clarity of scientific thought made a strong impression on Kim. In 2015, Kim became a postdoctoral research associate in McMahon's laboratory at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, where he is applying his expertise to the challenge of kidney regeneration.

"My longstanding scientific interest has been aimed at understanding how the microenvironment of immature cellular precursors is important for properly instructing specific cell fates," he said.

Kim will also collaborate with the laboratory of Megan McCain, Ph.D., at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, which will help produce a matrix scaffold upon which to grow the stem cells.

"Dr. Kim is just the sort of talented young scientist we seek to encourage and acknowledge as a Hearst Fellow," said McMahon. "His proposal is ambitious, as it should be for a scientist of his caliber. The potential is enormous, the time opportune and Dr. Kim has the credentials to make his mark in this important new area."