Kidney disease is a life-threatening complication of diabetes-- a disease marked by high levels of glucose in the blood because of defects in the way the body makes or uses insulin. For instance, in 2002, nearly 154,000 diabetic patients reached end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and were living on chronic dialysis or with a kidney transplant, according to the American Diabetes Association. That's more people than live in the entire city of Hampton, Va. Currently, the number of people in the United States with ESRD is about 300,000. That population is expected to double by 2010. The challenge for patients, their families, researchers, nurses and physicians is stopping the progression of kidney disease in its tracks in people with diabetes, potentially saving thousands of lives.

Research on one promising new treatment uses a growing body of evidence that inflammation may be a key cause of diabetic kidney disease.

Generally, inflammation is a nonspecific immune response to a type of bodily injury. Working with that idea, Dr. Mark Okusa, a nephrologist and professor of medicine at the University of Virginia Health System, has won two grants totaling $1.2 million over four years to test whether certain drugs can interrupt the inflammatory process that occurs in diabetic kidney disease. These drugs act on receptors for the compound adenosine. One drug, called ATL-146e, is licensed to the company Adenosine Therapeutics LLC of Charlottesville, Va. Preliminary results show that this drug prevents inflammation associated with acute kidney injury.

"We've been working with drugs affecting the adenosine system in acute kidney injury since the mid-1990's," Okusa said. "Why not take these concepts and apply them to treat chronic kidney disease?" Key members of the Okusa lab at UVa, including Dr. Alaa Awad and Mrs. Liping Huang, have found that adenosine drugs can prevent some of the most serious symptoms of diabetic kidney disease.

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Contact: Bob Beard
bobbeard@virginia.edu
434-982-4490
University of Virginia Health System
3-Jan-2006

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