In 2023, a major report from Kidney Research UK showed that kidney failure could overwhelm the health care system within ten years. The LifeArc-Kidney Research UK Centre for Rare Kidney Diseases is being launched to provide urgent focus and resource. It will unite researchers, patients and healthcare professionals and build on strong established resources, including the national registry of rare kidney diseases (RaDaR), the national renal sample biobank (NURTuRE) and care guidelines. It will signal the start of a transformation in all of the 13 of the UK’s children’s kidney centres to embed a culture of research by connecting the systems to accelerate discoveries and advance the treatment of rare kidney diseases.
The new translational centre is jointly funded by the medical research charity, LifeArc, who are investing £9.4M in partnership with Kidney Research UK which is contributing an additional £1M to be used to support the work of the centre over the next five years. It will be led by Dr Louise Oni, Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Nephrology at the University of Liverpool and honorary consultant paediatric nephrologist at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital.
Moin Saleem, Professor of Paediatric Renal Medicine at Bristol Medical School and Director of Bristol Renal, is one of the Bristol leads for the new centre.