Banking on kidney research
Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust has recruited 300 people - 10% of the national recruitment target - to give biological samples to a new kidney biobank.
The biobank will provide a valuable resource for researchers to analyse plasma, serum, urine, DNA and tissue samples in the hope that, eventually, they will be able to help kidney disease patients enjoy better health outcomes as they unlock some of the mysteries surrounding the condition. The biobank is the first of its kind for chronic kidney disease (CKD) and idiopathic nephrotic syndrome (INS) in England, Scotland and Wales.
The biobank project, known as NURTuRE (National Unified Renal Translational Research Enterprise) now contains biological data from 3,000 patients across the three countries. In total, 15 hospitals have been involved in the NURTuRE-CKD project over the past two years. NURTuRE also plans to collect samples from 800 people with INS, and is halfway to reaching that target too. Each person who takes part gives samples and consent to their anonymised clinical information being held in the NURTuRE biobank.
Professor David Wheeler, Honorary Consultant Nephrologist at Royal Free, said: "It's a fantastic effort from the renal research team at Royal Free to have recruited such a high percentage of the national target for this biobank. The samples that have been collected will make a valuable resource for researchers studying CKD in future."
The biobank, which is on the CRN portfolio, is funded by AbbVie Inc, AstraZeneca, Evotec AV, Retrophin, UCB Celltech Biopharma and Kidney Research UK.
