Kidney RX: Drug Design for Treatment of Kidney Damage
Overview
Kidney RX is developing a therapeutic strategy to reverse cellular and mitochondrial damage in chronic conditions such as chronic kidney disease (CKD) and chronic Lyme disease (CLD). By developing a bioactive, orally available formulation and conducting pre-clinical studies, the group will evaluate the drug’s efficacy in reversing cellular injury—a mechanism intended to slow disease progression and improve patient outcomes.
The Issue
The problem of chronic illness is a major burden of morbidity for the human race and we hypothesize that there are common cellular processes that may result in the chronicity of disease, with mitochondrial injury being central to this More than 10% of the global population is affected by chronic kidney disease and the burden of chronic lyme disease is growing. And now we believe that mitochondrial salvage therapy may provide a common approach to improve cellular injury and improve cellular resilience to stress. With no treatments available that can effectively stop disease progression or improve patient outcomes, the demand for innovative therapies to manage and reduce the symptoms of chronic lyme disease and slow or reverse the injury of kidney disease, are significant unmet needs.
Approach
The project’s approach involves identifying and validating novel drugs against target genes relevant to cellular and mitochondrial injury in CKD. The team is also developing novel formulations of drugs with established human safety profiles to improve oral bioavailability for administration in CKD and CLD. To test the efficacy of these drugs, the project will utilize pre-clinical in vitro cellular model systems—including human organ-on-a-chip technology—to evaluate improvements in cellular inflammation and mitochondrial injury. By targeting mitochondrial dysfunction and lysosomal defects driven by oxidative stress, this therapy has the potential to slow disease progression and provide meaningful benefits for CKD and CLD patients.
MTM Student Engagement
The Capstone team will participate in lab-based cutting-edge studies in drug screening, drug formation design, cell cultures and human-organ-on-a-chip design. They will also participate in patient-facing activities, clinical sample collection and processing, data collection and database design, and in vitro toxicity and efficacy studies of ATX. Students will also engage in clinical trial design, regulatory strategy and business planning to support translation of this therapy toward clinical application.
Project Brief
