Featured Researcher — Linda Baker, MD

Her laboratory combines genetically engineered mouse models of pediatric urologic birth defects with clinically valuable human samples.

Clinically, Dr. Baker specializes in complex genitourinary surgical reconstruction, and she is a national leader in corrective vaginal surgery. Overall, her work contributes to new discoveries for children with a variety of kidney and urinary tract conditions, including PBS, kidney stones, disorders of sexual development, cryptorchidism, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, testicular torsion and congenital female vaginal anomalies.

Before joining Nationwide Children’s, Dr. Baker was a faculty member in the Division of Pediatric Urology at Children’s Health Dallas and a professor of Urology and director of Pediatric Urology Research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Department of Urology. During her tenure, Dr. Baker was recognized with an award for her teaching.

Dr. Baker earned her bachelor’s degree from Western Kentucky University and medical degree from the University of Louisville. She then completed a urology residency at the University of Virginia, where she went on to be an American Foundation for Urological Disease Research Scholar. Dr. Baker pursued her postdoctoral fellowship in pediatric urology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

To date, Dr. Baker has authored 23 book chapters and over 120 publications. She has a medical device patent, has held 32 visiting professorships nationally and internationally, and helped coauthor the 2014 AUA Practice Guidelines on cryptorchidism. She also serves on the Medical Advisory Board of the nonprofit Prune Belly Syndrome Network (PBSN).

Read on to learn more about Dr. Baker and her work.

The two best ways to kill a kidney are to let it get infected with a urinary tract infection (UTI) or to have urine that’s not properly being drained create back pressure. And those with PBS are going to battle not emptying their bladder well their whole lives. As a result, 67% of PBS survivors will go into kidney failure and need dialysis or a kidney transplant. If we can reduce that number, we’ll have done a good thing.

What brought you to Nationwide Children’s?

There are fantastic opportunities for research here. The work that has already been done and is being done meshes really well with my work. Coming here also worked well for my family. But ultimately, it was Brian Becknell, MD, PhD, Rama Jayanthi, MD, and John David Spencer, MD, who brought me here.

All the pediatric urologists in the country kind of know each other. Dr. Jayanthi knew I’d gotten to be internationally known for my PBS work and had two R01s to study PBS. Then, about a year a half ago, I did a virtual invited lecture about that work, and it was after that they began to reach out to me about coming here.

What’s next?

I’ve joined the leadership team in the Kidney and Urinary Tract Center, and our hope and plan is to continue working with other pediatric urologists and building a bigger team.

I’m also interested in building a PBS destination center to raise the bar for the care we can offer kids with the condition and continue building a research program that integrates basic scientists, clinicians — nephrologists and urologists — and the wonderful physical therapists here. We also have a strong group of researchers focused on neuromuscular conditions like Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). In a lot of ways, what kids with PBS have is a skeletal and smooth muscle problem, but they’re not sent to neurologists, so they don’t benefit from the same body of knowledge. But we can tap into that knowledge by collaborating across our teams.

Another exciting and cool thing is that before COVID hit, PBSN used to have annual or semiannual conventions. When I was in Dallas, they moved them all to Dallas, and since I moved to Columbus, they’re holding the next one in Columbus. It will be in July 2023 and marks the network’s first event since COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted.