Kidney in Biological News

3-D kidney atlas created for researchers and physicians

Renal diseases shall be diagnosed earlier and treated more successfully in the future. Towards this aim, researchers from nine European countries*, coordinated by the Max Delbrck Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch, Germany, have been working for the past four-and-a half years to creat...

Study finds novel genetic risk factors for kidney disease

A team of researchers from the United States, the Netherlands and Iceland has identified three genes containing common mutations that are associated with altered kidney disease risk. One of the discovered genes, the UMOD gene, produces Tamm-Horsfall protein, the most common protein in the urine of...

Drinking diet soda may reduce the risk of forming kidney stones

LINTHICUM, MD, April 26, 2009Patients with stone disease could benefit from drinking diet soda. New research from the University of California, San Francisco suggests that the citrate and malate content in commonly consumed sodas may be sufficient to inhibit the development of calcium stones. The ...

UT Southwestern researchers probe kidney damage, protection in lupus

DALLAS April 21, 2009 Kidney damage associated with the autoimmune disease lupus is linked to a malfunction of immune cells that causes them to congregate in and attack the organs, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered in a mouse study. In a separate study with an inte...

Freezing kidney cancer: Hot treatment should be new gold standard for destroying small tumors

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (March 9, 2009)Freezing kidney tumorsusing a safe minimally invasive interventional radiology treatment that kills the cancer 100 percent effectively without surgeryshould be the gold standard or first treatment option for all individuals with tumors that are 4 centimeters in siz...

Updated formula measures kidney function more accurately

Measuring kidney function in children can be expensive, time-consuming for clinicians, and tedious for children, who may be exposed to radioactivity and subjected to a large number of blood draws. A new calculation eliminates many of these obstacles, relying instead on various blood tests that can...

Shorter wait means longer life for kidney transplant candidates

GAINESVILLE, Fla. How long a patient survives after a kidney transplant could depend on where he or she signs up to get the surgery, new research from the University of Florida shows. The shorter the waiting time at a transplant center, the longer patients are likely to live. A combination of ...

Gene mutation increases drug toxicity, rejection risk in pediatric kidney transplants

CINCINNATI Screening for mutations in a gene that helps the body metabolize a kidney transplant anti-rejection drug may predict which children are at higher risk for side effects, including compromised white blood cell count or organ rejection, according to new research. Published online Feb. ...

UC Davis discovery offers hope for treating kidney cancer

Kidney cancer is typically without symptoms until it has spread to other organs, when it is also the most difficult to treat. Newer chemotherapies show great promise for extending survival during later disease stages, but they can also be highly toxic. In one of the first discoveries of its ki...

UC San Diego researchers use metagene 'portraits' to reveal distinct stages of kidney formation

In the art world, the most successful portraits are often those that reveal the true essence of the subject a subject that on canvas, at least, will never age. In the science world, researchers are relying on portraits of gene expression patterns but, in this case, the images are helping to reve...

Gaining a better understanding of kidney diseases

This press release is available in German . Cystic kidney disease, renal fibrosis, or renal cell carcinoma: Many diseases of the excretory organs are characterized by overproduction or on the contrary absence of characteristic proteins in the renal cells. An international research team und...

Simple screening questionnaire for kidney disease outperforms current clinical practice guidelines

NEW YORK (Feb. 28, 2007) -- The general public is not sufficiently aware that chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a serious and progressive medical condition. It remains under-diagnosed and under-treated. Understandably so, since in its early stages CKD is often asymptomatic, making individuals with t...

Northwestern Memorial trial may wean kidney transplant patients off antirejection drugs

CHICAGO After a transplant surgery, anti-rejection drugs for the organ recipient are a must, but with prolonged use can have serious side effects, including infections, heart disease and cancer. A team led by Joshua Miller, MD, a researcher at Northwestern Universitys Feinberg School of Medicine,...

Genetic breakthrough offers promise in tackling kidney tumors

A new study has shown promising results in fighting a severe genetic disorder which can create tumours throughout the body. Advances in genetic knowledge have transformed our understanding of disease in recent years. We now know which genes are linked to a wide variety of conditions. However, s...

Diet support helps chronic kidney patients

Regular counselling on diet and lifestyle offers significant benefits to people with chronic kidney disease, according to new Queensland University Technology research. Dietitian Katrina Campbell, who graduated with her PhD from QUT, monitored the diets of 62 pre-dialysis patients at the Royal ...

High blood pressure takes big toll on small filtering units of the kidney

Take a kidney out of the body and it still knows how to filter toxins from the blood. But all bets are off in the face of high blood pressure. "How does the kidney know how to do it and why does it break in hypertension?" says Dr. Edward W. Inscho, physiologist in the Medical College of Geor...

Twin studies reveal genetic components leading to cardiac and kidney disease

Daniel O’Connor, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine has studied about 265 twin pairs over the past few years, which has led him to some surprising discoveries. "By studying many traits and genes, we have started to put...

Cryoablation -- A new treatment option for some kidney tumor patients

Mayo Clinic researchers report that freezing kidney tumors through percutaneous cryoablation shows promise for patients who are not good candidates for surgery. Their early findings showing short-term success in more than 90 percent of selected patients are published in this month’s issue of Radio...

Mutant gene causes severe kidney disease in infants

Scientists at the University of Michigan Medical School have discovered a previously unknown cause for a severe, early-onset form of kidney disease and renal failure in children: recessive mutations in a gene called phospholipase C epsilon or PLCE1. Identifying the mutant gene is important to sci...

Key gene controlling kidney development found

A gene called Six2 plays a critical role in the development of the kidney by keeping a population of "parent" stem cells constantly available to produce the differentiated cells that give rise to specialized parts of the organ, according to investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Di...

More kidney cancer is detected and treated early, yet death rate rises

The number of cases of kidney cancer has been rising over the last two decades, and new research from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center shows that this increase is driven largely by the detection of small, presumably curable, kidney masses. But even though the rising incidence ...

Scientists solve 30-year-old mystery of mutant mouse's kidney woes

Researchers seeking insights into kidney failure in human infants have located the source of a 30-year-old mystery mutation that causes similar problems in a mouse line. Scientists have known of the mouse line's naturally occurring mutation since the early 1970s. Researchers at Washington Univer...

U of M study examines kidney stone prevention in astronauts

As the space shuttle Discovery prepares to launch on July 1, researchers at the University of Minnesota have identified a way for astronauts to reduce their risk of developing kidney stones while in space. Astronauts lose calcium in their bones and strength in their muscles while in space because...

Gene discovery may shed light on kidney disease

In a finding that may have broader implications for understanding kidney disorders, genetics researchers at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia have identified a second gene that gives rise to Alagille syndrome, a genetic developmental disease that affects multiple organs. The Children's Hospit...

Scientists discover that widely available drug also helps fight kidney disease

A widely available drug may be effective in treating kidney disease, report scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara. They describe the discovery in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science published the week of March 20. The drug is rapamycin, a...

New research demonstrates bone-marrow derived stem cells can reverse genetic kidney disease

The discovery that bone-marrow derived stem cells can regenerate damaged renal cells in an animal model of Alport syndrome provides a potential new strategy for managing this inherited kidney disease and offers the first example of how stem cells may be useful in repairing basement membrane matrix ...

NASA links nanobacteria to kidney stones and other diseases

Nanobacteria (NB), a novel self-replicating, mineralizing agent, has been identified by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists as a potential culprit in kidney stone formation among astronauts. With the potential for future exploratory space missions to the moon and Mars, l...

Deficiency of growth hormone and IGF-1 reduces cancer and kidney disease, but creates other problems

Deficiencies of growth hormone and similar compounds may reduce cancer and kidney disease late in life, but also may lead to cartilage degeneration and impaired memory and learning ability, according to research at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and four other institutions. The res...

Bioartificial kidney under study at MCG

Whether a bioartificial kidney containing billions of donor kidney cells will help intensive care patients with kidney failure survive is under study at the Medical College of Georgia. MCG Medical Center has joined a study taking place in intensive care units across the country to evaluate the e...

Carnegie donates landmark clones to biology

...regulation by neighbors is. It also emphasizes the importance and the potential that the new clones have for understanding a spectrum of problems from kidney diseases to engineering better crops," remarked director of the department Wolf Frommer. ...

Stress signals link pre-existing sickness with susceptibility to bacterial infection

...hondrial disease exhibit a wide range of symptoms including diabetes, blindness, deafness, stroke-like episodes, epilepsy, ataxia, muscle weakness and kidney disease. The metabolic abnormalities that cause these effects also induce a stress signal intended to help the body overcome its energy deficit. The ...

University of Minnesota research leads to new technology to protect human health

...ldren and hospitalized 150,000 last year after it was added to milk to increase its apparent protein content. Some children may have life-long chronic kidney problems resulting from melamine exposure. Development of the test responds to a call from the World Health Organization (WHO) for a simple, inexpe...

UAB study reveals bone coupling factor key to skeletal health

... can help change that." Discovered many years ago, TGF beta-1 is one of the most abundant cytokines in bone. It has been identified in lung, liver, kidney and other organs that undergo remodeling as a natural part of the growth and aging process. Understanding the TGF beta-1 role in bone may shed light o...

Axel Ullrich named winner of 2009 Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research

...Years later, a small molecule inhibitor of the VEGFR2 kinase function was developed, from which a derivative was approved in 2006 for the treatment of kidney carcinoma and gastro-intestinal stromal tumors. "It is an honor to receive an award of this stature and to be recognized among so many outstanding...

Genetically engineered mice yield clues to 'knocking out' cancer

... Kirkali found that both types of knockout mice exhibited significant accumulation of two lesions called formamidopyrimidines in the DNA of the liver, kidney and brain. This indicates that there was a lack of DNA repair in these organs. During the second year of life, both types of mice also developed pu...

Scientific evidence of health problems from past contamination of drinking water at Camp Lejeune is limited and unlikely to be resolved with further study

...lso compared information from epidemiologic studies with that from toxicologic studies and found similar health effects in both humans and animals for kidney cancer. Similar noncancerous diseases and disorders included adverse effects on the liver, kidneys, and nervous and immune systems. The findings are...

American Chemical Society weekly presspac -- June 10, 2009

...LEASE Toward an "electronic nose" to sniff out kidney disease in exhaled breath ACS Nano Scienti..." even when patients have lost 75 percent of their kidney function. The most reliable test, a kidney biopsy, is invasive and may result in infections a...

Hypertension among lower-status employees lingers well into retirement

...is consistently too high. This condition can eventually damage cells of the arteries' inner lining, leading to angina, heart attack, stroke, aneurysm, kidney failure and other serious health problems. "People's occupations during their working years can clearly be a risk for hypertension after they retir...

American Chemical Society's Weekly PressPac -- June 3, 2009

...c/full/10.1021/np900094v CONTACT: H. Martin Garraffo, Ph.D. Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and kidney Diseases National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Md. 20892-0820 Phone: 301-496-1095 Fax: 301-480-5703 Email: garraffo@helix.nih.gov ...

Seventy-three scientists elected to the American Academy of Microbiology

...tate University, Columbus John Hayes, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, MA Deborah M. Hinton, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and kidney Diseases, Bethesda, MD David W. Holden, Imperial College London, United Kingdom James A. Hoxie, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Phi...