The National Institutes of Health has awarded a four-year, $6 million grant to investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) to develop an implantable artificial kidney.

Understanding the action of a certain enzyme will shed light on basement membrane function, and on disorders ranging from diabetic kidney disease to cancer.

Vanderbilt University researchers have come closer to solving a mystery that has puzzled scientists for more than a century: after the loss of one kidney, what causes the growth of the remaining kidney to take up the slack?

TGF-beta signaling in the kidney was thought to be a target for reducing renal fibrosis, but Vanderbilt researchers report that fibrosis still occurs in the absence of TGF-beta signaling.

Chronic kidney disease impairs the protective functions of HDL, Vanderbilt researchers report this month.

Diabetic nephropathy, or kidney disease caused by diabetes, is a major source of morbidity and mortality. In the United States, more than 30 percent of patients receiving either dialytic therapy or renal transplantation have end stage renal disease as a result of diabetic nephropathy.

In some cases, HDL, the "good cholesterol," may not function properly and may actually accelerate atherosclerosis.