Aussie kidney researchers boosted by NIH grant

An all-Australian group of researchers embracing some of the country's leading stem cell workers has won an a $4.2 million grant from the US National Institutes of Health to spearhead research into kidney disease.

The grant has gone to a group within the Renal Regeneration Consortium, which is coupling the latest technology in gene expression profiling with tissue engineering and regenerative medicine .

Its long term aim is to deliver key outcomes that benefit patients with kidney failure or disease

The group is mining expression profiling for information on growth factors which can transform stem cells into renal tissue.

Its long term hope is to develop new ways of treating kidney disease both by repairing damage and by "actually taking embryonic material and engineering little replacement kidneys in the peritoneal cavity," said group co-leader, Assoc Prof Melissa Little.

A molecular development biologist, Little is a principal investigator with the Renal Regeneration Consortium and a researcher at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) at University of Queensland.

Monash University's Prof John Bertram is a co-leader of the team which includes senior stem cell scientist Assoc Prof Martin Pera, also of Monash.

Other members of the team are:

• Dr Rohan Teasdale, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, UQ
• Dr Sean Grimmond, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, UQ
• Prof David Hume, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, UQ
• Prof Julie Campbell, University of Queensland
• Prof Gordon Campbell, University of Queensland
• Prof Warwick Anderson, Monash University
• Dr Andrew Perkins, Monash University
• Dr Georgina Caruana, Monash University
• Prof Daine Alcorn, RMIT
• Dr Michael Falk, Canberra Hospital

The group will become part of an international network of NIH-funded research teams working on a variety of organs but is the only all-Australian group successful in its funding request and the only one focused on kidneys.

The grant awarded of $US750,000 per annum for three years will be administered by the University of Queensland.

The team's research will use embryonic cell lines from Australian sources registered with the NIH.

Its coupling of stem cell biology and organogenesis expertise with expression profiling will ensure the generation of diverse products including:

• markers for renal stem cells,
• factors/drug targets to induce renal differentiation or maintain cell pluripotency for expansion,
• factors to stimulate endogenous stem cell recruitment and/or renal repair, and
• novel sources and methodologies for the manipulation of stem cells.