The University of Malta has started a kidney research programme, with the help of €70,000 donated by the LifeCycle Foundation.

In line with the foundation’s mission, the LifeCycle Kidney Research Programme will look at prevention, diagnosis and treatment of kidney disease, to improve the quality of life.

The research, to be conducted in collaboration with Mater Dei Hospital,will pursue four lines of observation and involve six researchers, assisted by a research assistant and a research support officer.

The first two projects look at paediatric kidney disease.

Around 18 patients were born in the past 30 years with a congenital syndrome known as SRNS. The project leaders believe that genetic sequencing can make it easier to predict the disease as well as to develop more diagnostic tools.

Another syndrome, also based on congenital anomalies, is the major cause of end-stage renal disease in children, who become dependent on chronic dialysis in the absence of transplants, and have a poor life expectancy.

The third line of investigation will look at kidney disease associated with end-stage diabetes, trying to establish risk and therapeutic response depending on a genetic profile.

The final project will look at the substance that regulates the production of haemoglobin, which is virtually absent in patients with kidney failure.

There is a bio-synthetic version of the substance, erythropoietin, but this is not always accepted by the body and the researchers want to understand why.