Kids Kidney Research

Development of the kidney is complex, and involves interactions between primitive cells types that become specialised to form nearly all of the different tissues in the adult kidney. Development sometimes goes wrong leading to malformed kidneys, and many genes in developing kidneys are reactivated in diseases of the mature kidney. A new treatment for kidney diseases would be to grow cells and make them specialise into kidney cells that could take over the functions of diseased and damaged cells.  Embryonic stem cells can be stimulated to specialise into many tissues but there are major ethical issues over this kind of research. In this study we will investigate cells derived from amniotic fluid – this is routinely taken to check for chromosome problems in babies before birth, and we will just use left over material that would otherwise be thrown away. We will first test to see if any possess the same characteristics as kidney cells. Next we will add chemicals that induce kidney development to test their potential to specialise in a dish. And finally, we will test whether these cells can grow into normal kidney tissues and help reduce severity of experimental kidney disease. These cells may represent novel treatments for kidney malformations in the future, especially since it may be possible to generate these from the amniotic fluid surrounding the baby and treat them with their own cells, as well as wider potential therapies for adult kidney diseases.