Samir M. Parikh, M.D.
Professor of Internal Medicine
Chief, Division of Nephrology

Dr. Parikh was born and raised in New Jersey. He attended Harvard where he graduated magna cum laude with a degree in chemistry before matriculating at Vanderbilt for medical school. Among several honors, he received the Founder’s Medal for highest academic standing in his graduating class. Dr. Parikh completed internship, residency, and nephrology fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. He attained the rank of Professor of Medicine at Harvard before moving to Dallas.

Dr. Parikh’s research is focused on mechanisms of resilience to acute physiological stressors. His work has identified major components of the host vascular response to severe infections, including the role of the endothelial tyrosine kinase Tie2. More recent studies have focused on the response of metabolically active cells and tissues to noxious insults, where his group has defined novel actions of the mitochondrial biogenesis factor PGC1alpha and the central metabolic cofactor NAD+. The studies on NAD+ homeostasis have translated to ongoing clinical trials in acute kidney injury (AKI), a common yet orphan stress-induced syndrome. Work from his team has been published in Nature, Nature Medicine, JCI, Science Translational Medicine, PNAS, and other high-impact journals. The group is now applying these insights to study renal development, links between AKI and chronic kidney disease, and more general questions of aging.