NephCure Foundation Announces

Research Grant Program Recipients

Eight applicants receive total of $1.6 million

Berwyn, PA – (July 28, 2008) – The NephCure Foundation announced that eight grant recipients for the 2008 NephCure Research Scientific Grant Program have been awarded a total of more than $1.6 million. The Scientific Grant Program supports basic science research initiatives to understand the cause, identify treatments and find the cure for primary Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) and Nephrotic Syndrome.

Post-Doctoral Fellowship grants were awarded to:

· Elizabeth Brown, MD, of the Children’s Hospital Boston

· Michelle Rheault, MD, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, NY

· Bart Smeets, PhD, of the Aachen Medical Clinic in Aachen, Germany

Young Investigator Grants were awarded to:

· Duncan Johnstone, MD, PhD of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

· Anne Greka, MD, PhD of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA

· Markus Bitzer, MD of Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York, NY

· Michael G. Janech, PhD of Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC

The eighth grant was awarded to Martin Pollak, MD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. Pollak received a bridge grant funded by The NephCure Foundation though its partnership with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

The research grants are the result of The NephCure Foundation’s first public request for proposal program and almost 30 percent of submissions were funded.

The grant program is indicative of NephCure’s growth and increasing role as the leading advocate for research into primary FSGS and Nephrotic Syndrome. Buoyed by an expanding membership of patient families and friends, NephCure grew its fundraising revenue from $40,000 in 2003 to $1.6 million in 2007.  NephCure was a major advocate for the recently completed FSGS Clinical Trial, a five-year $15 million National Institutes of Health program studying the effect of various treatments on FSGS patients.

“This increased level of research funding is a huge part of our mission,” said Dr. Lawrence Holzman of the University of Michigan and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board for The NephCure Foundation. “This is important work that would simply not be done without these grants. Every research initiative is progress toward finding better treatments and cures for these diseases.”

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Nephrotic Syndrome and FSGS are conditions that affect the tiny filtering units (glomeruli) in the kidney.  The result is that protein needed by the body is discarded into the urine. Over time, these conditions can result in renal failure and the need for dialysis or a kidney transplant.  The primary cause for most forms of Nephrotic Syndrome and FSGS are not known and there is no cure.

Based in Berwyn, PA, 20 miles west of Philadelphia, The NephCure Foundation is the only organization solely committed to seeking a cause and cure for primary Nephrotic Syndrome and FSGS.  Comprised of patients, their families and friends, researchers, physicians and other healthcare professionals, Nephcure aims to help science unlock the biological mechanisms that cause these serious conditions and ultimately find a way to cure and prevent them.

Biographical Detail:

Elizabeth Brown, MD, is a Pediatric Nephrology Fellow at Children’s Hospital Boston who treated children with kidney conditions during her residency and clinical year of fellowship at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.  She has also worked in the laboratory of Martin Pollak, MD, at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.  Brown is attempting to identify new genetic causes for FSGS by evaluating the DNA of patients with a familial history of FSGS. 

Michelle Rheault, MD, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City is a Pediatric Nephrologist who completed her clinical training at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.  Rheault's current research investigates the role of podocyte-basement membrane interactions in the regulation of proteinuria.

Bart Smeets, PhD, began studying glomerular diseases in 2000 at the Department of Pathology, Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. In 2008, Smeets began work in the group of Marcus J. Moeller, MD, at the Department of Nephrology, University Hospital of the RWTH-Aachen in Germany. In addition to his work on glomerular degeneration, he will study regenerative mechanisms within the glomerulus. This funded project will focus on the glomerular parietal epithelial cell, since Moeller's group has demonstrated that parietal epithelial cells can migrate onto the glomerular capillaries to regenerate podocytes.

Duncan Johnstone, MD, received his PhD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, training in Genetics and also in Molecular and Cell Biology from James H. Thomas, MD.  His Internal Medicine residency at Northwestern Memorial Hospital was followed by a fellowship in Nephrology at the University of Michigan.  Johnstone is studying the basic mechanisms of Nephrotic Syndrome with Lawrence Holzman, MD, of the University of Michigan, focusing on the biology of the protein Fat1, which is found at the glomerular slit diaphragm and which, when deleted in experimental mice, results in critical Nephrotic Syndrome. 

Anne Greka, MD, PhD, received her clinical training at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School. She has worked at Harvard’s affiliated hospitals including the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital for the past thirteen years. Greka plans to elucidate the calcium signaling mechanisms that when disordered might lead to proteinuria syndromes such as FSGS.

Markus Bitzer, MD, studied at Friedrich Alexander University, Department of Medicine in Erlangen, Germany. He is based at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York, NY. Bitzer’s primary research involves the role of microRNAs in the progression of FSGS. The goal of his work is to identify the mechanisms underlying the effect of miR-21 and other differentially expressed microRNAs on the development and progression of FSGS.

Michael Janech, PhD, is the Assistant Professor in the Division of Nephrology and Associate Director of the Nephrology Proteomic Laboratory at the Medical University of South Carolina. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Oakland University, a Master of Science in Marine Biology from the College of Charleston and a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the Medical University of South Carolina. Janech plans to discover urine biomarkers which will better characterize glomerular diseases. Results from these studies will form the basis for early detection of glomerular disease to prevent progression to end-stage renal disease.

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Martin Pollak, MD, graduated from Princeton University before attending New York University School of Medicine. He completed three years of residency training in internal medicine at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. Pollak completed both a research fellowship in medicine and a postdoctoral fellowship in genetics at Harvard Medical School, Boston. Pollak is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. His focus is molecular genetics of inherited focal glomerulosclerosis. Dr. Pollak is a member of The NephCure Foundation Scientific Advisory Board.

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Media Contact: Corey Muller cmuller@nephcure.org or 610-540-0184 ext 22