Department of Internal Medicine

Nephrology Faculty

Lawrence Hunsicker photo

Medical School:
Columbia University

Residency:
Roosevelt Hospital
U.S. Naval Hospital,
St. Albans, New York

Fellowship:
Harvard and Peter Bent Brigham Hospital

Lawrence G. Hunsicker, M.D.
Professor

Lawrence Hunsicker, M.D. is Professor of Medicine in the University of Iowa College of Medicine and Medical Director of Organ Transplantation at University of Iowa Health Care.  Dr. Hunsicker has extensive experience in the design, execution and analysis of clinical trials and national databases.  He was the cofounder with Dr. Edmund Lewis of the Collaborative Study Group, an international collaboration of academic and practicing nephrologists and endocrinologists that designed and executed the Captopril Study in Type 1 Diabetic Nephropathy (Lewis et al.,1993), the first study that documented in man the ability of blockade of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system(RAAS) to slow the progression of diabetic kidney disease, and indeed, the first study that documented any way to affect the progression of kidney disease in humans.  More recently this group has completed and reported the Irbesartan in Diabetic Nephropathy Trial (IDNT) Lewis et al., 2001) which showed the effectiveness of the angiotensin receptor blocker irbesartan in slowing the progression of the kidney disease of type 2 diabetes. Drs. Hunsicker and Clarke were PIs of the IDNT Date Center, responsible for quality control in the course of the study, for preparing and reporting to the DSMC, and at the end of the trial for performing the data analyses leading to the study publications.  Dr Hunsicker was also one of the original 6 PIs of the MDRD Study (Klar et al., 1994) and was intimately involved in the statistical analyses and reporting of that study. In the area of transplantation, Dr. Hunsicker has been involved from the beginning in the management of the data system for UNOS and was one of the primary architects of the center specific transplant data reports. His publications from the UNOS database include analyses of the impact of center size on transplant outcomes (Hosenpud et al., 1994 and Edwards et al., 1999) and the size of the deceased organ donor pool (Sheehy et al.., 2003).  He is now on the Executive Committee of the FAVORIT study of the impact of CV outcomes of reduction of plasma homocysteine levels in stable recipients of kidney transplant.  He is a member of the External Advisory Committee for the International Pancreas Transplant Registry.  Finally, he is PI of the USRDS Economic Special Study Center and is a consultant to the Data Center for the Frequent Hemodialysis Studies responsible for development of the cost and cost effectiveness analysis.  Thus, Dr. Hunsicker combines experience with clinical trial design, execution, and analysis, data management and analysis of large data sets, clinical transplantation including a whole organ pancreas transplantation, and economic analysis.

Honors, Awards, and Organizations

Recent Publications

  1. Lewis, E.J., Hunsicker, L.G., Rodby, R.A., for the Collaborative Study Group:  A clinical trial in type 2 diabetic nephropathy.  American Journal of Kidney Diseases, 38 (Suppl 1): S191-4, 2001.
  2. Lewis, E.J., Hunsicker, L.G., Clarke, W.R., Berl, T., Pohl, M.A., Lewis, J.B., Ritz, E., Atkins, R.C., Rohde, R., and Raz, I., for the Collaborative Study Group:  Renoprotective effect of the angiotensin-receptor antagonist irbesartan in patients with nephropathy due to type 2 diabetes.  New England Journal of Medicine, 345 :851-860, 2001.
  3. Cattran, D.C., Appel, G.B., Hebert, L.A., Hunsicker, L.G., Pohl, M.A., Hoy, W., Maxwell, D.R., Kunis, C.L., for the North American Nephrotic Syndrome Study Group:  Cyclosporine in patients with steroid-resistant membranous nephropathy: a randomized trial.  Kidney International, 59 :1484-1490, 2001.
  4. Edwards, E.B., Roberts, J.P., McBride, M.A., Schulak, J.A., Hunsicker, L.G.:  The effect of the volume of procedures at transplantation centers on mortality after liver transplantation.  The New England Journal of Medicine, 341 (27):2049-53, 1999.
  5. Rodby, R.A., Rohde, R.D., Clarke, W.R., Hunsicker, L.G., Anzalone, D.A., Atkins, R.C., Ritz, E., Lewis, E.J.: The Irbesartan type II diabetic nephropathy trial: study design and baseline patient characteristics.  Nephrology, Dialysis, Transplantation, 15 (4):487-97, 2000.
  6. Ernst, E.J., Klepser, M.E., Klepser, T.B., Nightingale, C.H., Hunsicker, L.G.:  Comparison of the serum and intracellular pharmacokinetics of azithromycin in healthy and diabetic volunteers.  Pharmacotherapy.  20 (6):657-61, 2000.

Back to Nephrology Faculty List