LAB NEWS
congrats yousif!
Yousif successfully defended his Master's Thesis, which evaluated long term kidney microphysiological system function and response to toxicants.
Kelly lab undergraduates present their research at the undergraduate research symposium
Pictured:
1) Keemia and Mei present their work
2) Mahi with her graduate mentor, Brad
3) Angela with Dr. Ed Kelly
4) Angela with her graduate mentor, Anish
Courtesy of Ed Kelly / UW School of Pharmacy
A look inside an organoid-based kidney tubule following its exposure to the toxic heavy metal cadmium, demonstrating expression of two proteins associated with kidney injury (HO-1 and KIM-1, green and red respectively).
Promising drug-development systems get new U.S. funding
Kidney disease researchers at the University of Washington will use a multimillion-dollar federal grant to advance drug-development platforms that would reduce reliance on animal tests in the production of future medications.
“The FDA Modernization Act 2.0 permits the use of alternative approaches to animal testing for predicting drug safety prior to initiation of trials in humans,” said Kelly. “As a toxicologist, being able to use alternative technologies to animal testing is an important advancement, with respect to the 3Rs of toxicology: reduce, refine and replace animal testing.”
Alternatives named in the Modernization Act include microphysiological systems such as organoids and organs-on-chips, he added. “Our group has developed kidney models for both alternatives and with this funding we propose to qualify the models to meet FDA regulatory requirements.”
Read more about this exciting new development HERE!
$7.3 million grant gives funds of new drug-development system
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently awarded kidney disease researchers at UW $7.3 million in the form of a federal grant.
Drugs that go into clinical trials have a failure rate of 90%. Dr. Edward Kelly, associate professor at the UW School of Pharmacy, attributed a significant part of that failure rate to unanticipated toxicity in drugs. Currently, the prediction of drug safety before clinical trials is based on animal testing, however Kelly said that rodents do not make good predictors for humans. For over a decade, the NIH has been funding a chips initiative at UW through the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) to create kidney physiological micro-systems that better indicate drug induced injury to the kidney.
Read the rest of the news article HERE!
Pharmaceutics Professors receive $4.5 million NIH grant
This NIH grant has been awarded to Pharmaceutics faculty members, Drs. Kelly, Unadkat, Wang, and Arnold, in order to start the Transporter Elucidation Center (UWTEC). The research goals of UWTEC are to identify, quantify and characterize solute carrier (SLC) and ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters in the human placenta and developing gut. This work will lead to better understanding of drug uptake and exposure to the developing fetus and infants.
The Transnational World of Primate Testing
Dr. Kelly featured in a documentary discussing alternatives to animal testing.
Watch the documentary HERE.
Microphysiological Systems World Summit 2023
Graduate students Chris, Brad and Anish each gave presentations at the MPS World Summit in Berlin, Germany this summer (June 2023)
Chris and Brad present their work at the Stem Cell Symposium
Institute for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine (ISCRM) Symposium, May 2023
Undergraduate Research Symposium
May 2023
Our undergraduate members, Ethan and Roshni presented their research involving assessing Cyclosporine A and Voclosporin nephrotoxicity using kidney MPS
