Rate My Professor Huiling Wu

Huiling Wu is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney. She is affiliated with the Kidney Node Laboratory at the Charles Perkins Centre and focuses her research on immunological mechanisms in kidney diseases. Wu obtained her PhD in Medicine from the University of Sydney in 1999, with a thesis entitled 'The Alpha Beta T Cell Receptor And Glomerulonephritis'. Her early work examined T-cell receptor usage in interstitial infiltrates within rejecting renal allografts and regulatory gamma delta T cells in Heymann nephritis. Over her career, she has held positions at the Centre for Kidney Research at The Children's Hospital at Westmead and the Centre for Transplantation and Renal Research at the Westmead Millennium Institute.

Wu's research investigates the roles of innate immune pathways, including Toll-like receptors (TLR4), HMGB1, and IL-18, in kidney ischemia/reperfusion injury, diabetic nephropathy, and allograft rejection. Notable publications include 'TLR4 activation mediates kidney ischemia/reperfusion injury' (2007, The Journal of Clinical Investigation), 'HMGB1 contributes to kidney ischemia reperfusion injury' (2010, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology), 'Therapeutic inflammatory monocyte modulation using immune-modifying microparticles' (2014, Science Translational Medicine), 'IL-18 contributes to renal damage after ischemia-reperfusion' (2008, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology), 'Dietary fiber protects against diabetic nephropathy through short-chain fatty acid–mediated activation of G protein–coupled receptors GPR43 and GPR109A' (2020, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology), 'The role of macrophages in allograft rejection' (2005, Transplantation), and 'Short-chain fatty acids directly exert anti-inflammatory responses in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated renal tubular epithelial cells' (2023, Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology). Her studies also cover DNA vaccination strategies for chemokine modulation in renal transplants, the gut-kidney axis, and dietary interventions like inulin for enhancing vaccine responses in kidney transplant recipients. Collaborating with researchers such as Stephen J. Chadban and Usha Panchapakesan, Wu has advanced understanding of inflammatory monocytes, podocyte injury, and proximal tubule inflammation in renal pathology.