Elaine M. Worcester, MD, FASN
Citation: Kidney News 15, 10/11
Elaine M. Worcester, MD, FASN, a longtime researcher into the processes that contribute to kidney stone formation in humans, will deliver the Jack W. Coburn, MD, Endowed Lectureship on Friday, November 3. The topic will be “Stone Prevention in Patients with Bowel Disease.” The lecture will be presented during a session titled “Clinical Stone Disease: Tools and Risk Factors.”
Dr. Worcester is professor of medicine at The University of Chicago Medicine, where she has worked since 2000. She also serves the university as director of the Chronic Hemodialysis Program, the Kidney Stone Evaluation Laboratory, and the Clinical Research Center Laboratory.
Dr. Worcester is a physician scientist whose research focuses on the causes of idiopathic hypercalciuria, which is a common cause of kidney stones and bone disease, as well as acid-base abnormalities that contribute to stone formation. Her work has also touched on the link between kidney stones and chronic kidney disease and the role of urinary crystallization inhibitors in stone disease. This research has improved the understanding of the role of mineral deposition in the renal papilla in stone formation.
Her exhaustive studies of the renal absorption and excretion of minerals along with descriptions of the clinical characteristics of patients with differing types of kidney stones have helped improve treatment of patients with kidney stones. Her most recent interests have delved into the effects of age and gender on the kidney as it relates to renal acidification and mineral excretion.
Dr. Worcester has been the principal investigator of a National Institutes of Health program that funds multi-disciplinary studies of stone formers at The University of Chicago and at Indiana University.
Her service contributions include serving the National Kidney Foundation of Wisconsin in many capacities, including as president; on the Nephrology Test-Writing Committee of the American Board of Internal Medicine; as president of the Research on Calculus Kinetics Society; and as a member of the enteric hyperoxaluria work group of the Kidney Health Initiative.
She has served as associate editor of CJASN and on the editorial board of the Journal of Nephrology.
Dr. Worcester received her medical degree from the University of Illinois Chicago and completed her internal medicine residency at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, IL, followed by clinical and research fellowships in nephrology at The University of Chicago.
