Hosted by Cardiff University's School of Medicine
Abstract: Transplantation is the best treatment for end stage kidney disease. One factor that limits the impact of kidney transplantation is the shortage of donors. To reduce this shortfall older donors with increasing co-morbidity are being are being considered. However, these extended criteria organs often cannot be used or if used have inferior short and long-term outcomes. To address this problem, NHS England recommended the establishment of centres for organ assessment and repair to bring new techniques into everyday clinical therapy to maximise the number and quality of organs available for transplant.
We have used ex vivo normothermic machine perfusion to deliver therapies directly to kidneys. We have shown that stem cells and oligonucleotides can be delivered to a kidney prior to transplant. Multipotent Adult Progenitor Cells (MAPCs), a type of stem, cell, alter intrarenal blood flow, increase urine output and have anti-inflammatory effects, effects with potential clinical benefit. Oligonucleotides, specifically antagonists of microRNA function, can later renal cell gene expression and potentially promote cell survival during ischaemia reperfusion. I will present some of this work and discuss the potential to treat organs prior to implantation to both increase utilisation rates and improve outcomes.
Biography: Neil Sheerin is a Professor of Nephrology at Newcastle University and Consultant Nephrologist at the Freeman Hospital’s Renal Services Centre specialising in nephrology and renal transplantation. Prof. Sheerin leads the renal clinical research group at the Freeman Hospital. This is a team of research nurses, a study co-ordinator and data manager. They actively participate in a wide range ofNIHR portfolio clinical trials in all aspects of Nephrology and Transplantation. Prof. Sheerin's clinical and laboratory research focuses on the immune mechanisms of renal disease, exploring this interaction between adaptive and innate immunity, in particular how this leads to fibrotic injury in native and transplanted kidneys.
Fibrosis is the common pathway that leads to organ failure in many diverse diseases affecting different organs. Becasue of the importance of fibrosis in clinical disease it is vital that we understand the mechanisms of renal fibrosis so that novel therapeutic targets can be identified and drugs developed. The Sheerin group is studying the underlying pathological processes that lead to kidney fibrosis. This includes the role of chronic inflammation, including the complement system, the cell signalling pathways that initiate a fibrotic response and testing novel therapeutic interventions in pre-clinical model systems of fibrosis. Work is also underway to identify new non-invasive biomarkers that identify patients with progressive renal fibrosis.
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