The University of Kansas Medical Center’s Kidney Institute was established in 2000 to support basic, clinical and translational research leading to major advances in the prevention and treatment of kidney diseases. In particular, the Kidney Institute has developed an environment that empowers creativity and innovation, and encourages collaboration and teamwork between laboratory scientists and physicians.
The University of Kansas Medical Center’s Kidney Institute was established in 2000 to support basic, clinical and translational research leading to major advances in the prevention and treatment of kidney diseases. In particular, the Kidney Institute has developed an environment that empowers creativity and innovation, and encourages collaboration and teamwork between laboratory scientists and physicians.
As one of the top kidney research centers in the country, the Kidney Institute’s 35 faculty investigators and 100 research associates identify risk factors that affect the progression of kidney disease and develop improved treatments. These researchers come from not only seven different KU Medical Center departments, but also the Kansas City Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center and the Stowers Institute.
Kidney Institute investigators received $6.85 million in total NIH research support for 2015, including a five-year, $5.4 million Core Center Grant (P30) grant from The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases to launch a center to advance the search for a cure and treatments for polycystic kidney disease (PKD).
The Kansas Polycystic Kidney Disease Research and Translation Core Center, which was formed as part of the NIH grant application process, is one of only four centers nationally to receive this type of PKD research funding from the NIH.
“This grant further raises the profile of KU Medical Center as one of the top research medical centers in the country,” said Dr. Alan Yu, M.B., B. Chir., director of the Kidney Institute and director of the Division of Nephrology. “The award will cement kidney diseases as one of our most highly prized research programs on campus, along with cancer, neuroscience, liver disease and reproductive biology.”
In addition to advances with PKD, Kidney Institute researchers are exploring glomerular development and diseases, signal transduction, bone/mineral metabolism, transport physiology, and health services and outcomes research.
In particular, Yu and his research team have spent years drilling down into the granular world of how our kidneys perform in an effort to learn how these essential organs function at a cellular level. What they’ve learned most recently was that something called paracellular transport is key to how efficiently the kidneys use energy to keep us alive.
Yu’s latest kidney research has been published in the prestigious Journal of Clinical Investigation – the official publication of the American Society of Clinical Investigation. More importantly, publication of “Paracelluar epithelial transport maximizes energy efficiency in the kidney,” marks the third time in as many years that research from the KU Kidney Institute has been included in the journal.
“We think this an important sign that we here at KU are leading the charge in translational research,” said Yu.