Professor of Medicine
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University
Dr. Markell’ is Professor of Medicine at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University and Medical Director of Kidney Transplant. Her research career spans several decades, initially focusing on diabetic kidney disease and metabolic disorders following kidney transplant. She was a member of the two international groups that defined the criteria for new onset diabetes after transplantation, and she was one of the first to describe hypomagnesemia in the post-transplant period associated with CNI use. She has recently focused on social determinants of health and health inequities in the CKD population, as well as those on dialysis and with kidney transplants, including diseases of under and over-nutrition and its’ effects on body composition post-transplant. She has published on inequities in vascular access creation, as well as vaccine hesitancy, and women’s health. A continuing major interest is in nutrition, and she has widely published and presented studies on food scarcity, dietary patterns, SNAP use, barriers to plant-based eating and food accessibility in inner-City patients with kidney disease. She was co-investigator on the NIH sponsored FAVORIT trial examining the impact of vitamin supplementation on cardiovascular disease in patients with kidney transplants, and has also been a co-investigator on multiple trials of new therapies of prevention of disease progression in diabetic kidney disease. Her recent interest is in helping underserved patients with CKD understand and implement plant based eating which has been shown to delay progression of disease.