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Renal Diseases
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A pacemaker for blood pressure?
Researchers evaluate iPod-sized device for hard-to-treat high blood pressure
May 27,
2009 --
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| Similar to a pacemaker, the iPod-sized device is implanted under the skin near the collarbone. |
Some 15 million Americans have high blood pressure that can't be controlled with medication, leaving them at high risk for early death, stroke, heart disease or kidney failure. Researchers at the School of Medicine are evaluating whether an investigational device can help these patients keep their blood pressure in check.
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Precious gift
Grad student's kidney gives life to stranger
March 9,
2009 -- Last year, Chuck Rickert, a fifth-year student in the M.D./Ph.D. program at the School of Medicine, heard a show about kidney donation on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation." One of the callers, a man in his 50s on dialysis, said his blood type did not match any friends or family, and his only option for a new kidney was to wait for something bad to happen to a younger person. The distressed man's call stuck with Rickert, who eventually decided to anonymously donate one of his own kidneys.
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Avoiding vascular calcification
Readily available treatment could help prevent heart disease in kidney patients
April 17,
2008 -- The estimated 19 million Americans living with chronic kidney disease (CKD) face a high risk of death from cardiovascular disease, usually related to high levels of blood phosphate. Now researchers at the School of Medicine have demonstrated that high blood phosphate directly stimulates calcification of blood vessels and that phosphate-binding drugs can decrease vascular calcification.
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Filtering the filter
Breakdown of kidney's ability to clean its own filters likely causes disease
Jan. 29,
2008 --
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| With a key protein disabled, a pair of kidney filtering units can't keep antibodies (shown in red) from building up in the filter. |
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The kidney actively cleans its most selective filter to keep it from clogging with blood proteins, scientists from the School of Medicine reveal in a new study. Researchers showed that breakdown of this self-cleaning feature can make kidneys more vulnerable to dysfunction and disease.
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Inching closer to a cure
Cross-species transplant in rhesus macaques is step toward diabetes cure for humans
Oct. 18,
2007 --
In a new study with an eye on curing diabetes, senior investigator Marc Hammerman and a group of WUSM scientists successfully transplanted embryonic pig pancreatic cells destined to produce insulin into diabetic macaque monkeys - all without the need for risky immune suppression drugs that prevent rejection. The transplanted cells, known as primordia, are in the earliest stages of developing into pancreatic tissues. Within several weeks of the transplants, the cells became engrafted, or established, within the three rhesus macaque monkeys that received them. The cells also released pig insulin in response to rising blood glucose levels, as would be expected in healthy animals and humans.
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Fighting a 'devastating illness'
$5.7 million to fund new kidney disease research center
Aug. 6,
2007 -- A $5.7 million grant will establish a new center for kidney disease research at the School of Medicine. Directed by Marc R. Hammerman, the Chromalloy Professor of Renal Diseases in Medicine, the center will investigate the underlying causes of kidney disease to speed the development of new treatments. The center's funding comes from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
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Smooth muscle
Protein's effects essential for kidney-to-bladder urine transfer
Dec. 26,
2006 -- Tests of a protein's role in the immune system have revealed a surprising connection to a kidney problem that occurs in approximately one percent of all live births. This condition, known as functional obstruction, impairs the ureter's ability to pump urine from the kidney to the bladder. If untreated, this leaves urine stuck in the kidney, which balloons and becomes at risk of failure.
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Fighting kidney rejection
Antibody reduces acute rejection in high-risk kidney transplant patients
Nov. 8,
2006 -- Nearly 70 percent of kidney transplant patients get short-term drug therapy initially administered during surgery to help prevent rejection. In the first head-to-head comparison of the two drugs most commonly given to ward off acute kidney rejection, an international study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis shows that one - anti-thymocyte globulin - is superior.
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Investigating tumors
WUSM doctor works to uncover mysteries behind rare childhood disease
Sept. 22,
2006 --
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| Photo by Robert Boston |
| Hill and Dehner discuss a recent case of PPB. |
Ashley Hill, assistant professor of pathology, has set her sights on solving a genetic mystery afflicting many patients. With the help of several colleagues, she is hunting for the genetic mutations that lie at the heart of a rare childhood lung tumor, pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB). The condition originally was identified in the 1970s and 1980s by Hill's mentor in pathology, Louis P. "Pepper" Dehner, professor of pathology and immunology and of pathology in pediatrics.
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Cures for diabetes
Transplant cures rats' type 2 diabetes without immune suppression drugs
Sept. 12,
2006 -- An approach proven to cure a rat model of type 1 or juvenile-onset diabetes also works in a rat model of type 2 or adult-onset diabetes, according to a new report from researchers at the School of Medicine.
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