WashU Nephrology is proud to announce that Naoka Murakami, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine, has been honored by the American Society of Transplantation (AST) for her outstanding contributions to the field of transplant nephrology. The award recognizes her scientific leadership, commitment to improving long‑term transplant outcomes, and her growing national impact as a physician‑scientist.
As a physician-scientist and transplant nephrologist, Dr. Murakami’s lab focuses on the roles of co-stimulatory signaling in autoimmune disease and kidney transplant rejection and tolerance. She also has extensive expertise in onconephrology. She led an international multi-center study examining outcomes of kidney transplant recipients treated with immune checkpoint blockade and is a founding member of the American Society of Onconephrology. Additionally, she conducts basic research into the mechanisms of kidney allograft rejection associated with checkpoint blockade.
Murakami holds a recently funded NIH R01 award and has previously received the Carl Gottschalk Research Scholar Award (2019), an NIH K08 award, and foundation support. She has been honored with the Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Transplantation and the ISN-Kidney International (KI) Early Career Researcher Award-Clinical Science from the International Society of Nephrology.
In addition to her research accomplishments, Murakami is deeply committed to mentorship and education. She plays an active role in training future physician‑scientists through programs such as the WashU Nephrology Summer SOAR Program, of which she is director, and regularly presents her work at national meetings, including the NKF Spring Clinical Meetings.
The recognition from AST highlights Murakami’s dedication to advancing the science and practice of transplantation and reflects the excellence she brings to our division and to the broader transplant community.
