SWAN’S ISLAND — At 7 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 2 at the Odd Fellows Hall, Hermann Haller, M.D., physician, professor and director of the department of nephrology at the Hannover Medical School in Germany and adjunct professor at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory (MDIBL) will look at classic works of art like the Mona Lisa with a diagnostician’s eye and discuss new ways to detect silent killers like kidney disease.
Chronic kidney disease currently affects 26 million adults in the U.S. alone. People in the early stages of kidney disease rarely display symptoms, so the condition is difficult to diagnose before grave damage has occurred. Diabetes and hypertension are the most common causes of chronic kidney disease.
Dr. Haller is a renowned kidney specialist with a degree in fine art and leader of the “reMAINE Healthy” a partnership between the MDIBL, The Jackson Laboratory and the Maine Medical Center in Portland. His laboratories in Maine and Germany have developed a new way of detecting kidney malfunction using zebrafish.
The event is cosponsored by the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory’s reMAINE Healthy Program and the Swan’s Island Mill Pond Health Center.