Going beyond SysKid
Report of the Renal Week 2010 of the American Society of Nephrology from November 16-21 in Denver, CO, USA (by Rainer Oberbauer)
The annual meeting of the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) is the main meeting for clinicians and researchers as well as policy makers in the field of kidney disease. The ASN consist of more than 12,000 members of whom more than 200 subjects volunteer to fill 62 available positions on one of the societies 31 committees, advisory groups and other panels. Many of the SysKid partners and members of the advisory board attended this year’s meeting and presented their work.
The conference highlights were very much in the focus of what the SysKid project is all about: identification of valid biomarkers for kidney disease. In the presidential address Sharon Anderson spoke about the true need of such markers and compared the situation to the successful ‘Oncotype DX®’ panel that now guides oncologist on the treatment for breast cancer for example. Furthermore Rama Natarajan addressed in his Barry M. Brenner endowed lectureship the implications of microRNA profiling for diabetic nephropathy, also a task in the SysKid project addressed by partner 14 (Biogazelle NV). Elaine A. Ostander discussed the mapping of complex traits such as will be also done by partner 15 (Celera Inc.) in the SysKid consortium on early diabetic kidney disease. Refinement of eGFR was also a hot topic at this year’s meeting and work of SysKid partner 8 from the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) was presented.
Johannes Mann as SysKid partner 7 (University Clinic Erlangen) moderated a session on hypertension and microalbuminuria in which renowned researchers presented their data derived from large studies such as the ROADMAP study or NHANES. It however remained unanswered what the best predictors for the development and drug response (e.g. to ARBs of albuminuria) are. Carmine Zoccali (partner 17 Consiglio Nazionale Delle Ricerche) spoke in a session on the topic of the obesity epidemic in chronic kidney disease about body composition measurements and Gerjan Navis (affiliated to partner 8 UMCG) in the same session on weight and sodium excess. Wolfgang Winkelmayer who is on the SysKid advisory board initiated a two day pre-meeting course on comparative effectiveness analysis and furthermore contributed as speaker on post transplant anemia in the main meeting. Other members of partner 8 (UMCG) presented their work on DIAMETRIC, a longitudinal database of clinical trials in different CKD stages, a cost effectiveness analysis of active vitamin D, and test characteristics of biomarkers for treatment success.
Besides the research activities, the ASN meeting also demonstrated its achievements as society in the past year including the expansion of distant learning opportunities such as an online board review course. Furthermore, the ASN Kidney News were published on a monthly basis to distribute the information to ASN members thus allowing penetration of this important public health issue into the society. With the chance of the editor of the top ranked clinical renal journal CJASN from William Bennett to Gary Curhan, a member of the SysKid consortium was invited to join the editorial board of this prestigious journal (partner 2 Medical University of Vienna).
What has been illustrated above shows that the topics and process of the SysKid working packages are timely and very relevant of what is currently considered as need in nephrology. The partners and advisors of the SysKid consortium are well anchored in this important society of kidney disease research guaranteeing a wide distribution and implementation of SysKid results and findings also in the US.
EKHA and SysKid liaise
SysKid is aiming at joining forces with other organisations being active in the field of kidney research and kidney health issues on the national level, EU-level, and beyond.
This is why SysKid has started to liaise with the European Kidney Health Alliance EKHA. SysKid representatives met with Professor Andrew Rees, Chair of the European Kidney Health Alliance who holds a Fellowship at the Clinical Institute of Pathology, Medical University of Vienna.
EKHA is an alliance of non-profit organisations representing European organisations in kidney health issues. EKHA involves patients, doctors and nurses, researchers, and other healthcare professionals who work cooperatively for a European health environment in which there is a sustained decrease in kidney disease and its consequences.
The members are: European Kidney Patients' Federation (CEAPIR) which is also represented in SysKid’s advisory board, the European Dialysis and Transplant Nurses Association/European Renal Care Association (EDTNA/ERCA), the European Renal Association - European Dialysis and Transplant Association (ERA-EDTA) which is interwoven with SysKid and in particular with certain members of its consortium, the International Federation of Kidney Foundations, and the International Society of Nephrology.
EKHA is in contact on a regular basis with members of the European parliament and with the EU commission to raise awareness on kidney disease as a European health problem.
EKHA is also interested to cooperate with SysKid and wants to be updated on actual research results. Therefore the member organisations of EKHA will receive the SysKid Newsletter and other information to back up EKHA’s work.
Coordinating with the GCKD study
The German Chronic Kidney Disease (GCKD) study is recruiting a cohort of 5.000 patients with chronic kidney disease in Germany to follow them prospectively for 10 years. In contrast to the planned study within Syskid (Provalid), which will recruit patients with type II diabetes in the very early or early stages of renal disease the GCKD study focuses on subjects with stage III renal failure or significant albuminuria (>300 mg/g creatinine) at baseline and is thus an ideal complement for our efforts. The GCKD scientists are already collaborating with other cohort studies like the US CRIC study.
The study is coordinated by Prof. Kai Uwe Eckardt and Dr. S Titze in Erlangen / Germany. Prof. Eckardt already joined the SysKid meeting in Munich this year and it was agreed that the GCKD study team will collaborate with and advise the team of our Syskid provalid study.
This cooperation will ensure that Syskid provalid will be embedded in an environment of other similar studies that focus on other stages of renal failure. This will enable us to jointly improve our understanding of this complex disease
Building on Synergies: EuroKUP and SysKid
EuroKUP is a European Union COST-funded Action (http://www.cost.esf.org), and by now also a non-profit organization, aiming at the application of proteome analysis to improve the clinical situation in kidney disease (see also www.eurokup.org ). Currently, EuroKUP, chaired by Antonia Vlahou (Biomedical Research Foundation, Academy of Athens, Greece), has over 100 members, mostly basic scientists involved in proteomics, and clinicians, from 26 countries.
While EuroKUP as a COST Action does not have funding to perform research projects as such, the individual members do have funding, and EuroKUP also serves as platform to initiate projects, grant proposals, etc. EuroKUP, via its members, has vast experience, know- how, and access to instruments in the field of proteome analysis and CKD, unsurpassed by any other organization. To identify/validate proteomic biomarkers that enable assessment of CKD progression, a multicentric European study aiming at the inclusion of 400 patients is currently initiated by several clinicians of EuroKUP, headed by Goce Spasovski (University of Skopje, Macedonia) and Meguid El Nahas (University of Sheffield, UK).
SysKid (Systems Biology towards novel chronic kidney disease diagnosis and treatment) is a FP7-funded large scale integrating project aimed at analyzing the early stages of chronic kidney disease in the context of diabetes and hypertension. SysKid, chaired by Bernd Mayer (emergentec biodevelopment GmbH, Vienna, Austria) assembles 25 partners involving academia, SMEs and industry. SysKid utilizes a broad set of Omics technologies and associated bioinformatics driven in conjunction with experimental validation and clinical epidemiology. More details on SysKid can be found at www.syskid.eu.
Evidently, EuroKUP and SysKid both aim at deepening our understanding of chronic kidney disease for providing the basis for improved diagnosis, prognosis, therapy, and ultimately prevention. Consequently an interaction between these two groups is highly advisable on a very practical level (exchange of know-how, samples, etc.), but also for initiating joint project and research funding initiatives.
The following activities for investigating joint opportunities are planned:
Raising awareness of EuroKUP and SysKid in the respective consortia
Presentation of SysKid at the upcoming EuroKUP meeting this fall, and presentation of EuroKUP at the SysKid annual meeting in winter 2010
