Diabetic kidney initiative launched across Europe

A Europe wide initiative will aim to improve the prevention and management of diabetic kidney disease, the leading cause of kidney failure in the world.

The project is called Biomarker Enterprise to Attack Diabetic Kidney Disease (BEAt-DKD) and will be led by Professor Richard Coward in the University of Bristol.

Professor Coward, from the School of Clinical Sciences at University of Bristol and European co-lead, said: “BEAt-DKD will study thousands of patients affected with DKD across Europe.  We hope to discover key factors that predict which patients will progress into kidney failure and require kidney dialysis or transplantation. The project also hopes to identify key pathways that may be manipulated to treat patients with this condition.”

The £24.5m project will last five years and aim to explore the molecular mechanisms of DKD. Currently there is no available method to prevent or cure DKD, which is the leading cause of end-stage renal disease. Researchers will investigate the molecular mechanisms that underpin the disease and aim to provide a holistic systems medicine view of the pathogenesis and heterogeneity of DKD.

Researchers hope this will enable the target mechanisms and pathways to be identified that are behind the initiation and progression of kidney disease. This is in addition to identifying and validating biomarkers of disease progression and treatment responses.

Professor Maria Gomez, from Lund University and project co-ordinator, said: “We are very excited to have gathered so many brilliant and truly dedicated investigators, impressive materials and innovative techniques in this unprecedented joint effort to make a real difference for patients with DKD.”

BEAt-DKD is comprised of experts from 21 academic institutions, six companies from the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, a biotech company and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.