Photo of Titilayo (Titi) Ilori looking out over a balcony.

Titilayo (Titi) Ilori’s global health research focuses on understanding the environmental and genetic factors contributing to kidney disease. By exploring how factors like diet, stress, and genetics influence kidney health, she aims to develop actionable solutions to prevent disease progression and minimize health disparities for all patients.  

What inspired you to pursue global health research on kidney disease?   
My dad is a professor of engineering, and I was born when he was doing his postdoc in the U.S. When we moved to Nigeria for his job, my dad often talked about doing research in the U.S. and it inspired me to pursue a career in research, myself. I was drawn to nephrology for my specialty because it has a very analytical aspect to it. During my nephrology internship in Nigeria, I encountered a patient with HIV-associated kidney damage. I was fascinated to learn that only Black patients experience massive kidney failure because of HIV-associated kidney disease (HIVAN) whereas white individuals often have less severe HIVAN. When my patient with HIVAN passed away, they left an imprint on me, and I wanted to study why there were these stark differences in outcomes. We now know that this might partially be due to a gene called the Apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1) that puts individuals of African descent at higher risk of kidney disease.  

What is the goal of your current global health project?   
My work is a fusion of clinical research on complex health equity issues in the U.S. and research on kidney disease in sub-Saharan Africa. Through a global lens, I aim to figure out drivers of diseases among underrepresented individuals, especially people of African descent all over the world. I have worked on the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) Initiative since 2016 and have a huge cohort in sub-Saharan African where I study environmental factors that could slow or mitigate the progression of kidney disease. One of the Ilori lab’s major discoveries so far is that dietary potassium could possibly reduce kidney disease progression and cardiovascular disease in people of African descent, especially those who have the high-risk APOL1 gene. Now, we are looking into why this is and are working to get more evidence with the goal of testing some of these observational findings about potassium in a future clinical trial.  I am also working with the Black Women’s Health Study to investigate social drivers of kidney disease and the role of allostatic load, or the cumulative effect of chronic stress, in chronic kidney disease progression.  

How does your global health research impact patients?    
I’m really interested in figuring out how environmental modifications like diet, lifestyle changes, and social determinants of health can slow or prevent the progression of kidney and cardiometabolic diseases. I am thinking about the things that our patients can control in their everyday lives to improve health outcomes. I am motivated to improve kidney health in underrepresented groups and to increase the representation of underrepresented groups in biomedical research. 

 

Learn more about Boston Medical Center’s equity-led research. 

Media Contact:

gina.mantica@bmc.org
Return to BMC News