(l to r) Barbara, Dr Trish Murray from the Institute, Dr Sandra Rak-Raszewska, Jan and Dr Louise Watson
Staff from the Institute of Translational Medicine unveiled a plaque in recognition of the generous support received from the Alder Hey Children’s Kidney Fund (AHCKF).
The plaque has been commissioned as a thank you for the generous contributions made by AHCKF towards supporting kidney research at the University.
AHCKF is a registered charity that was set up more than 40 years ago to provide help to children with renal and urological disorders, through welfare assistance, supporting staff training and development providing equipment and supporting research.
Since 2005, the charity has provided financial support for vital pieces of equipment and for pump-priming new research projects at the University that would normally be considered too premature for research council funding.
As a direct result of AHCKF-funded research, scientists from the University have been awarded a grant towards a programme which will help generate stem cells from human kidney for use in drug discovery programmes and regenerative medicine.
The charity is also supporting two postdoctoral scientists, Dr Sandra Rak-Raszewska and Joni Downes whose programme is to set up a renal injury model in mice to see if stem cells from different sources can ameliorate renal disease.
At the unveiling Barbara Hoyle and Jan Green from the charity met with Sandra and also spent time with Dr Louise Watson, a Clinical Research Fellow based in the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital whose project AHCKF is also supporting.
Dr Watson’s project is to discover earlier, non-invasive ways to diagnose kidney injury and to better understand the disease mechanism leading to kidney injury, in children who have the autoimmune condition, Juvenile-onset Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.