KI Discoveries

Treatment of Kidney Disease
At the University of Kansas Medical Center's Kidney Institute, more than 35 KU faculty physician scientists and some 100 research associates are giving hope to those with kidney disease. The interdisciplinary research teams at the Kidney Institute identify risk factors that affect the progression of kidney disease and develop improved treatments.

Jared Grantham, MD, examines how a family of proteins produced by polycystic kidney disease (PKD) genes called polycystins affect the normal development of parts of the kidney, heart and pancreas. These studies will pave the way for finding a cure for PKD.

Grantham, a university distinguished professor and founding director of the Kidney Institute, is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking research on PKD. He knows that the work of KU School of Medicine physician scientists has a wide-ranging impact that extends far beyond Kansas City and the region. It's about improving renal health around the world," says Grantham.

James Calvet, Ph.D., is the Director of the Kansas Interdisciplinary Center for PKD Research. His research group is investigating the cellular mechanisms that govern the proliferation of the cyst lining epithelial cells.

Dale Abrahamson, PhD, a university distinguished professor, leads a research program that's working with embryonic stem cells from mice to see if these cells can be persuaded to form or repair part of a kidney. Experiments are at a very early stage but raise the possibility that stem cell therapy in the future might be a way of restoring lost function in kidneys that have irrepairable damage.

Renal Function
Kidneys work 24/7 to clean the blood of waste and extra fluid. They filter out poisons while preserving the good components of blood.

"We take them for granted," says Jared Grantham, MD, who has dedicated a lifetime to understanding kidney disease. "Without kidneys, we would still be living in oceans or ponds. If you didn't have them, you would swell up like a toad."

Renal physiologist Homer Smith, MD, author of the 1940s scientific bestseller, "From Fish to Philosopher," backs up Grantham's fish reference. Smith is one of the first scientists to talk about the evolution of the kidney as the central development that permitted certain mammals to pull themselves out of the rivers and oceans and thrive on land.

Complex kidneys permit mammals to drink fluid and conserve as much water as possible, thus laying the foundation for physiological freedom and the development of specialized blood, bones, muscles, glands, and brains. As a visiting professor at the University of Kansas in 1939, Smith delivered his scientific theories in a series of lectures that later became the basis for his popular book. Grantham wrote about Smith's lectures in his departmental history of nephrology.