About Us
We're here to revolutionize kidney care.
Our committed team of professionals brings a colorful array of skills and backgrounds to the table to solve the problem of kidney disease in a big way.
About Us
RenAlign brings together the best and brightest minds in the nephrology world. Our united mission is to advocate for nutrition as a first line treatment of kidney care.
Our Team: Advocates for Change
Jessianna Saville
Founder and Executive Director
MS, RDN, CSR, LD, CLT
Jessianna is a registered dietitian and renal nutrition specialist, passionate about helping the many kidney warriors I see around me preserve their kidney function. She teaches evidence-based strategies to optimize nutrition for kidney health so people can look forward to their futures without dialysis.
Lindsey Zirker
Program and Dietitian Development
MS, RD, CSR, LD
Lindsey is a seasoned renal dietitian who is passionate about real food for real results.
She loves diving into the latest research so her clients can get great outcomes. She excels at taking each piece of research and making it into a practical application for patients.
Diana Bruen, RD
PKD Expert and Program Developer
MS, RD, CSR, LD
Lindsey is a seasoned renal dietitian who is passionate about real food for real results.
She loves diving into the latest research so her clients can get great outcomes. She excels at taking each piece of research and making it into a practical application for patients.
Clarissa Paimanta
Program and Recipe Development
RDN
Clarissa is a registered dietitian and a mastermind at making science come alive into real ways to eat.
She is excited to be on this journey for helping people preserve kidney function.
Our Advisory Board
Dr. Thomas Weimbs
PKD Research and Clinical Application
Thomas Weimbs is a professor at the University of California in Santa Barbara (UCSB) where he directs a research laboratory focused on polycystic kidney disease (PKD). He received his doctoral degree from the University of Cologne, Germany, and then conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California in San Francisco. In 1999, he started his first independent research laboratory at the Lerner Research Institute of the Cleveland Clinic as an assistant professor. There, he started to research PKD after he was approached by a local family affected by PKD who financially supported PKD research in his newly-founded laboratory. Their family foundation still supports PKD research in Dr. Weimbs' lab today. In 2005, Dr. Weimbs moved his laboratory back to California to join the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at UCSB. His laboratory studies molecular mechanisms underlying PKD with an emphasis towards developing new therapies. Research from Dr. Weimbs’ lab has led to a better understanding of PKD and led to novel methods to deliver therapeutics specifically to polycystic kidneys. Some of the most recent research has led to the discovery that commonly available, and safe, natural compounds can prevent cyst growth in animal models on PKD. Research in Dr. Weimbs’ laboratory has been funded by grants from federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense, by private foundations, including the Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust, the Amy P. Goldman Foundation and the Jarrett Family Fund, as well as several biotech companies. For more information on research in the Weimbs lab, see https://labs.mcdb.ucsb.edu/weimbs/thomas/
In March 2020, Dr. Weimbs founded Santa Barbara Nutrients to develop science-backed nutraceuticals for the nutritional management of PKD and to support kidney health. He is currently the president of Santa Barbara Nutrients.
In his free time (what free time?), Thomas enjoys playing the saxophone in his jazz band (no, you wouldn't have heard of them...).