John Eckfeldt

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Credentials

MD, PhD

Research Summary

Dr. Eckfeldt is a faculty investigator in the Advanced Research and Diagnostics Laboratory (ARDL), which provides central laboratory testing services for large, NIH-funded multi-center clinical trials. Through numerous national studies he has established himself as a leading researcher in the area of cardiovascular disease epidemiology, particularly the role lipids and other biomarkers play in cardiovascular diseases. Eckfeldt was principal laboratory investigator for the Hispanic Community Health Study, an NIH-funded multicenter epidemiologic study of U.S. Hispanic/Latino populations, and is the PI for the ancillary Hispanic Community Children's Health Study / Study of Latino Youth (SOL Youth), a multicenter study of Hispanic/Latino children living in the U.S. The SOL Youth study is designed to disclose the prevalence and distribution of obesity-promoting lifestyle behaviors, cardio-metabolic risk profiles, and novel biomarkers associated with obesity and insulin resistance.

In recent years Eckfeldt has focused mainly on kidney disease. He is a co-investigator with the Chronic Kidney Disease Biomarkers Consortium (CKD-BioCon). CKD-BioCON is a longitudinal study involving multiple universities with NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases that seeks to discover, develop, validate and qualify biomarkers based on biosamples from well-characterized CKD patients. He also serves as co-PI for the Preventing Early Renal Loss in Diabetes (PERL) consortium. The consortium has undertaken a multi-center, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial aimed at evaluating the efficacy of allopurinol in preventing kidney function loss in individuals with type 1 diabetes. In addition, Eckfeldt is a co-investigator and the central laboratory director in the chronic kidney disease epidemiology collaboration (CKD-EPI). In this capacity he tests protein biomarkers such as cystatin C, an important marker for measuring the glomerular filtration rate, which indicates how well the kidneys are working.

Dr. Eckfeldt has long had an interest in assuring the reliability and long-term stability of assay results in large-scale epidemiological observational and interventional research studies. In addition he has sought to further the standardization and harmonization of clinical laboratories and inter-laboratory comparability through committee work at the College of American Pathologists (CAP) and working group participation at the International Standards Organization (ISO).

Publications

PubMed

• Chen N, Shi H, Zhang L, Zuo L, Xie J, Xie D, Karger AB, Miao S, Ren H, Zhang W, Wang W, Pan Y, Minji W, Sui Z, Okparavero A, Simon A, Chaudhari J, Eckfeldt JH, Inker LA, Levey AS. GFR Estimation Using a Panel of Filtration Markers in Shanghai and Beijing. Kidney Med. 2020;2(2):172-180. Published 2020 Jan 31. doi:10.1016/j.xkme.2019.11.004.
• Seegmiller JC, Eckfeldt JH, Lieske JC. Challenges in Measuring Glomerular Filtration Rate: A Clinical Laboratory Perspective. Adv Chronic Kidney Dis. 2018 Jan;25(1):84-92. doi: 10.1053/j.ackd.2017.10.006
• Schwartz GJ, Wang H, Erway B, Nordin G, Seegmiller J, Lieske JX, Bäck S-E, Miller WG, Eckfeldt JH. Multicenter Laboratory Comparison of Iohexol Measurement. The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine Mar 2018, 2 (5) 711-724; DOI: 10.1373/jalm.2017.024240 http://jalm.aaccjnls.org/content/2/5/711
• Karger AB, Inker LA, Coresh J, Levey AS, Eckfeldt JH. Novel Filtration Markers for GFR Estimation. EJIFCC 2017 Dec 19:28(4):277-288.eCollection 2017 Dec. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29333147
• Eckfeldt JH, Karger AB, Miller WG, Rynders GP, Inker LA. Performance in measurement of serum cystatin C by laboratories participating in the college of american pathologists 2014 CYS survey. Arch Pathol Lab Med 2015;139:888-893.