Saving childhoods with new research centre
Introducing our amazing new research centre - The LifeArc-Kidney Research UK Centre for Rare Kidney Diseases. Thanks to your support, we're investing in this new centre which will help thousands of people living with rare kidney diseases have a chance of a better future.
The new research centre is being jointly funded by LifeArc, who are investing an incredible £9.4M, in partnership with us. We are 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.
Dr Aisling McMahon, executive director of research at Kidney Research UK, said: “Ensuring that everyone has equal access to innovations and new therapies designed to benefit kidney patients is a key priority for Kidney Research UK. We are delighted to be co-funding this new centre with LifeArc."
Providing the best care for patients
The new research centre brings together all 13 childhood kidney care centres in the UK, along with the registry of rare kidney diseases (RaDaR), and the renal sample biobank (NURTuRE). For the first time, everyone will come together as one interconnected team. This means patients will get the very best of care, wherever they live in the country.
Accelerating research to transform treatments
Our newly interconnected centres will create many more opportunities to share knowledge, learn from each other, and develop new treatments for patients, faster.
New treatment trials
With access to more patients in a joined up system, the centre will attract more interest from drug companies to bring new medicines to patients. This means patients may have better options that were never available before.
Meet Dr Louise Oni, Director of the LifeArc-Kidney Research UK Centre for Rare Kidney Diseases
"My name is Louise Oni, and as a researcher and clinician working with children who have rare kidney
diseases, I spend a lot of time with young people whose early years are filled with appointments, procedures, and illness.
"If a child spends two or three years on dialysis, they can’t get that time back. It’s gone. But what if we could find a way
to slow down or stop the progression of childhood kidney disease? What if we could prevent children’s kidneys failing, or at least delay it into adulthood? Can you imagine the difference that would make to them?
"Instead of hours and hours and hours connected to a machine that cleans their blood, they could be doing all the things children should be doing. Playing, having fun. That’s our goal at the new LifeArc-Kidney Research UK Centre for Rare Kidney Diseases.
"I just want to say thank you, on behalf of children living with kidney disease. Thanks to you, we have a huge opportunity here to improve kidney treatment and quality of life for people with kidney disease across the UK."
Equal care for everyone
The new research centre is founded around the ideal that everyone should have equal access to the best care, no matter their age, where they live in the country, their economic status or cultural background.
Growing the team that will care for tomorrow’s children
At the moment, Dr Oni is one of only a few university employed research doctors in the whole of the UK. The new research centre will create many more opportunities to attract brilliant new people to kidney science and develop their skills. The patients of the future will be in good hands.
This is the beginning
The new centre will focus first on children with rare kidney diseases, and will then expand to include adults too. Our ambition is that people with kidney disease get excellent care at every stage of their lives, from childhood to adulthood.
Help us do more
Right now there are an estimated 7.2 million people across the UK living with chronic kidney disease. Our recent research report shows the number of people facing kidney failure in the next 10 years will grow and could overwhelm the NHS. It’s urgent that we do more.
