Alina Hilger

I am working on congenital urethral obstruction (LUTO; Lower urinary tract obstruction, OMIM # 618612).The most common anatomical cause of which is posterior urethral valves (PUV). About 3:10,000 pregnancies are affected. LUTO is a common cause of chronic kidney failure and dialysis in children, still little is known about the causative mechaisms of it's emergence. Hence, my interest is to decipher the genetic background of this birth defect, and study the clinical course of LUTO patients.