AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Top academic investigators and clinicians from leading U.S. research universities will gather in Austin, Texas, September 10-11 to participate in the Kidney Regeneration & Bioengineering State-of-the-Science Summit, the third organ-specific summit convened by Solving Organ Shortage in little over a year, to focus research on regenerating or engineering solid organs for human transplant.
SOS, a non-profit funding strategic research that addresses the organ shortage, is organizing the Summit under the leadership of Chief Science Coordinators for the kidney — Dr. Thomas Carroll, associate professor internal medicine and molecular biology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, and Dr. Leif Oxburgh, principal investigator in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute.
“The kidney is a complex organ that filters the blood, controls blood pressure and regulates the number of red blood cells,” said Dr. Carroll. “Embryologists have been studying how the kidney develops for over 60 years, so we have an incredible amount of knowledge to build on. At the Summit we’ll bring developmental, cell, and vascular biologists together with physiologists, bioengineers, clinicians and surgeons to identify top-priority research initiatives and form the Whole Kidney Research Community.”
Entities like the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes for Health are warning kidney disease is reaching epidemic levels, driven in large part by the high incidence of uncontrolled high blood pressure and obesity-linked diabetes. Clinicians and academic investigators invited to participate in the Kidney Summit represent multiple scientific disciplines, reflecting SOS’s emphasis on convening organ-specific experts who can approach the problem from different perspectives.
“Humans can live a relatively normal life after losing a significant amount of kidney filtration capacity, in some cases up to 75 percent,” said Dr. Oxburgh. “So if we can engineer a kidney that boosts a patient’s filtration by 25 percent, we can significantly reduce the need for dialysis and slow the progression toward kidney failure. Accomplishing that would be a dramatic medical advance.”
Over 100,000 people are currently on the U.S. kidney wait list, but only 16,000 will likely receive a transplant this year. Organ donation has stagnated in the past decade and less than one percent of deceased donors are medically eligible to donate a kidney, according to Dr. Ronald Landes, president of SOS. “Even with the extraordinary advances made in the past decade enabling the use of less-than-ideal organs for use in transplantation, demand far outstrips supply. We need a scientific breakthrough.”
About Solving Organ Shortage
Solving Organ Shortage is a nonprofit supporting a science-driven effort to regenerate or engineer replacement organs for human transplant by funding high-impact research projects. SOS Summits are designed to bring top academic investigators and clinician scientists together to form organ-specific Research Communities focused on identifying next-step research initiatives that advance the organization’s mission to solve the organ shortage. SOS formed the Whole Liver Research Community in April 2014 and the Whole Lung Research Community in January 2015. Next up is the SOS Leadership Workshop in Chicago, April 27-28, to design a streamlined granting program in advance of announcing Request for Proposals later this year. For the latest SOS news and information please visit www.SolvingOrganShortage.org, or follow us on Twitter.
