New Australian group in kidney bioengineering push

By Tanya Hollis
Wednesday, 17 July, 2002

A consortium of Australia's top kidney scientists has come together with the ambitious goal of using stem cells to engineer a bioartificial organ.

Nephronix, spearheaded by Monash University and the University of Queensland, was formed in December last year to drive kidney research towards the ultimate prize - a cure for renal damage and failure.

Co-director Prof John Bertram said he and UQ's Assoc Prof Melissa Little conceived the idea to take advantage of the burgeoning range of scientific technologies.

"We started to ask each other if it was possible in this age of tissue engineering and genomics to dream the dream of identifying, manipulating and utilising stem cells to repair damaged kidneys or to engineer kidney bits or a replacement organ," Bertram said.

He said the first meeting of interested parties, spanning bioinformatics to kidney development, concluded that while the project was an immense undertaking it was realistic and, moreover, the time was right to give it a go.

And thus the consortium, which includes about 10 groups across Monash, UQ, RMITand the Canberra Hospital, came into being.

Bertram said that few groups appeared to be tackling the kidney, despite the inadequacy of existing treatments.

"The stats on kidney disease and failure in terms of patient numbers and costs are staggering and the rate of chronic renal failure is increasing 6 per cent per annum largely on the back of the type 2 diabetes epidemic," he said.

"At the moment, the therapies available are OK but it can be a struggle for patients to keep them going and can also be expensive and we see this as an opportunity to try to explore seriously some alternatives."

Bertram said that despite the extent of kidney disease globally, research into the function and genesis of the organ remained in its infancy.

"There's very little known about what stem cells are present in adult kidneys or about what cells in the adult might be tricked to adopt a renal fate, and in terms of molecular or genetic control of turning embryonic stem cells into kidney lineage, there are some studies that give us some ideas but it's really early days," he said.

"We have learned a lot in the past five years about key genes in making a kidney...but I think now with genomic technology and bioinformatics technology we can probably do a lot more a lot quicker and ask more global questions to identify key players in the lineage and so forth, and that's the approach we want to take."

He said the attitude of the consortium was that it was not necessary to understand the intricate detail of an organ in order to recreate it.

"I think to engineer a kidney we don't need to know every step in meticulous detail, you need to get the right cells in the right environment and they will do the rest," Bertram said.

"It's really about identifying the cells in adults and in embryos prior to renal differentiation and if we can combine this in various ways, the cells will know what to do."

Since forming the consortium, the members of Nephronix have kept busy writing grant applications to the National Institutes of Health, the National Health and Medical Research Council and AusIndustry's Biotechnology Innovation Fund.

Fortuitously, they were also invited to contribute to the winning Biotechnology Centre of Excellence bid - The Centre for Stem Cells and Tissue Repair.

Bertram said that while the group currently was simply a consortium of like-minded and committed individuals, the intention was for Nephronix to evolve into a company within the next few months.

"At the moment we are in the starters' gate, but we are still looking for support," he said.

The Nephronix team