Assistant Professors of Medicine Moe Mahjoub, PhD and Seth Goldberg, MD, are recipients of the 2016 Translational Innovation Grant, awarded by Division of Nephrology in the sum of $50,000.
The winning proposal, entitled Midbody Accumulation and Secretion in Polycystic Kidney Disease, aims to define how defects in components of the cell cytoskeleton contribute to the pathogenesis of polycystic kidney disease (PKD).
Moreover, the proposal will attempt to identify novel urinary biomarkers that can be used as a low cost non-invasive method to monitor PKD progression and cyst burden. “This is particularly of need in the area of clinical research trials, where younger, healthier subjects can take years – if not decades – to show a measurable decline in kidney filtration by traditional laboratory and imaging methods, thus making a more sensitive assay a critical necessity,” says Dr. Mahjoub.
Lai Kuan Dionne, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Mahjoub laboratory, will perform the study. Urine and kidney tissue from patients with PKD, procured from the Division of Nephrology Kidney Translational Research Core, will be analyzed. The core, directed by Sanjay Jain MD, PhD, is a valuable resource that gives investigators access to existing specimens and clinical data from more than 200 patients with cystic kidney disease.
The Translational Innovation Grant program, now in its second year, provides resources to basic scientists and clinical investigators within the division to collaborate on research projects with translational potential.
Last year’s winners are profiled here,