Eun Ji Chung and her collaborators will examine a new potential therapeutic for a rare and devastating genetic childhood kidney disease.
The National Institutes of Health has awarded funding to Dr. Karl Jacob Jr. and Karl Jacob III Early Career Chair and Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering Eun Ji Chung for new research into polycystic kidney disease.
The Chung Lab has been pioneering research and treatments for polycystic kidney disease using specially engineered nanoparticles to ferry a payload of drug molecules to the kidney. The lab’s latest work will focus on examining extracellular vesicles — membranous structures that are released from cells — as a potential treatment for autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease (ARPKD).
ARPKD is a rare and devastating genetic kidney disease that causes kidney failure in childhood and death in utero, but there are no cures or treatments to slow or stop disease progression. Chung and her team propose a new approach: developing a safe and effective treatment by examining urinary extracellular vesicles that contain functional proteins missing in ARPKD. This will be the first study to apply extracellular vesicles as a therapeutic strategy for polycystic kidney disease.
Published on September 25th, 2023
Last updated on October 18th, 2023