The charity fills an essential gap in kidney research in the UK by investing in smaller research projects, which otherwise may not be funded.
Such as these below
"My eureka moment came while reminiscing about an Italian castle. Castles have extrememley thick wallks and clever engineering to stop canon fire punching holes in them. Cells on the other hand are very fluid and easily become leaky under attack. So making them much more resilient to the 'canon fire' of the complement sstem would be an amazing step forward in preventing disease and also helping organ survival directly after transplantation. Since then, with the support of Kidney Research UK, my research group has been developing several new therapies that use out own natural cell defences and structures to improe the engineering of the cells of kidneys so they will be able to repel 'firendly fire' from the complement system"
Dr Kevin Marchbank - Studentship Award, Newcastle
Awarded £57,465 in April 2009 over three years
Professor Mion Saleem, in Bristol, began piloting a national registry for rare kidney diseases. This will address the scarcity of data available
Dr Rolf Apweiler will be summarising the accumalated experimentally - based knowledge about genes involved in kidney function, development and disease
Dr David Long is trying to increase our understanding about a family of proteins called angiopoietins, which havea key role in filtering units of the kidney.
Dr Paul Winyard is looking at a molecule which reduces cyst formation and could reduce cysts in childhood Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD)
Dr Joanne Marks, at the Royal Free, London, is researching to see if it's possible to prevent the complications of phosphate overload in chronic kidney failure via the gut (intestines).
Dr Chris McIntyre, at Derby, is looking at magnesium salts in Dialysate.
Dr Lesley Rees, at Great Ormond Street and ICH, is seeing if it is possible to maintain normal bone and blood vessel health in children on dialysis.
Dr Donal Ward, in Manchester, is looking at how to maintain healthy calcium levels in kidney disease.
Dr Guillot, at Imperial College London, is looking to see if stem cells are able to trael to the filtering units of the kidney and make collagen protein and prevent progression to kidney failure.
Dr Matthew Welberry Smith, in Leeds, is looking to identigy new protein biomarkers in vloof and/or urine that could help us diagnose problems with transplanted kidneys earlier. His work is jointly funded with the Medical REsearch Council.
Dr Kerem Atalar, at Kings' College London, is also joint funded by the Medical Research Council, and will be investigating the exact targets of immune cells involved in the rejection of kidney transplants
Dr Paul Evans, at Imperial College London, is studying the naturally-occurring mechanisms that can protect the kidneys from inflammation and injury when that are deprived of flowing blood during transplantation.
Dr David Vass received a training fellowship to continue the ongoing macrophage (immune Cell) work by studying macrophages to see if they cause late rejection in transplantation by first entering the kidney, then leaving the kidney to be taken up by the lymphatic system (lymph nodes) where rejection response is stimulated. This could lead to better transplantation outcomes.
