UWSOP Assistant Professor and Kidney Research Institute Investigator Cathy Yeung ‘05 and her team—composed of Ed Kelly, Benjamin “Beno” Freedman, along with Kenneth Thummel ‘87, and Jonathan Himmelfarb—have been awarded a contract for their study titled, Extended Culture of Kidney MPS and Organoids to Model Acute and Chronic Exposure to Drugs and Environmental Toxins.
This study is one of eight projects chosen for funding from 2022–2025 by NASA, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Health and Human Services Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“Finding kidney disease cures and preventing kidney disease progression demands immediate action and requires innovative strategies and models,” said Yeung. “Our team has approached the challenge by developing two innovative models.”
Currently, these models are generally used to test limited (days to weeks) exposures to drugs or other stressors.
“We propose to extend the use of our systems to model longer exposures, up to six months, to stressors and subsequent recovery,” Yeung added.
The goal of their study is to develop increased longevity kidney MPS and organoids. This will allow better understanding of chronic kidney disease and the prediction of chronic toxicity and injury.
Doctors and drug makers can use the information to accelerate drug development and can guide the development of strategies to prevent or mitigate nephrotoxicity caused by drugs, environmental chemicals, pathogens, and microgravity.
For more information, visit Go.nasa.gov/3hQy8Nb