“Being a transplant recipient is a blessing, but it is also life changing in several ways."

A $500,000 KidneyX prize has been awarded to The Kidney Project — a collaboration between Vanderbilt University Medical Center and University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) — for the development of an implantable dialysis system that would enable patients to safely and effectively treat kidney failure at home.

Vanderbilt researchers used pharmacological manipulations to increase salt and water transport by kidney cells grown in culture, a step necessary for realizing an implantable artificial kidney device.

Short of mandating universal diabetes treatment, regular exercise and low-calorie diets, little can be done to stem the rising tide of kidney failure — unless scientists can figure out why exactly the kidney’s filtration units, the glomeruli, stop working.

A signaling protein that is essential for recovery from acute kidney injury works by increasing the population of tissue-repairing immune cells.

Vanderbilt nephrologist, Thomas Golper, M.D., professor of Medicine in Nephrology and Hypertension, is leading an effort to form a research consortium with a goal of improving care for kidney failure patients who receive a form of home dialysis.

A gene associated with cell survival and longevity may protect the kidney from acute injury.