Kidney Research UK’s annual research conference, Driving Discoveries – Accelerating Research, has evolved to be one of the highlights in our scientific diaries. This year’s conference was no exception, in that it was an excellent congregation of scientists and early career researchers who showcased the ongoing novel and impactful scientific work in kidney disease, funded by Kidney Research UK. This year’s conference also introduced a new initiative where each session was chaired by an academic and a patient, so Professor Claire Sharpe and patient co-chair, Ifrah Raza chaired the opening session ‘Making discoveries count: the pathway to patients’ in which I had been invited, alongside Professor Nick Selby, to give a talk.
My talk ‘Improving donor kidney assessment developing new therapies so transplants last for longer’ covered research updates on our two research projects funded by KRUK, known as ADMIRE ‘Assessing Donor Kidneys and Monitoring Transplant REcipients and REDEEM ‘REnal Degradomics – Examining Donor Kidney Extracellular Matrices’. I took this opportunity to describe our research on developing better markers to assess donor kidneys. Analysis of a large number of QUOD samples and the application of machine learning approaches shows that we can develop more accurate methods to assess donor organs so only the organs that will function well are transplanted. I was also very happy to show our data on better understanding the biological processes of kidney injury and repair and how we could use targeted therapies to either protect donor organs from further injury during donor management or during preservation. I also presented our collaborative work on the potential use of MRI to assess donor organs and monitor transplant recipients led by Professor Sue Francis at Nottingham University, who was also one of the attendees.
Since members from my team also attended the conference, we had opportunities to socialise and meet other researchers at the poster sessions and over dinner. The Driving Discoveries – Accelerating Research meeting brings the kidney research community together to share their knowledge and speak about the work they are doing to improve the lives of kidney patients, so I am looking forward to next year’s highlights already!