University of Pittsburgh

Personalized Nephrotic Syndrome Treatment: A Novel Organotypic Human Kidney Culture System

This invention introduces a novel organotypic human kidney culture system designed to model nephrotic syndrome treatment. Its most significant advantage is the ability to personalize treatment strategies for patients, minimizing side effects and ensuring efficacy by testing drug responses ex vivo.

Description

The core of this invention involves culturing primary human kidney cells as organoids or minimal functional kidney units from a kidney biopsy. These organoids will undergo genetic, biochemical, morphological, and functional assays to assess the disease state and activity, with the patient's serum being a required component. Subsequently, the organoids will be used to examine the effects of various medications and therapeutic strategies on the disease. An additional application of this system is to determine the risk of nephrotic syndrome recurrence after kidney transplantation by exposing organoids from a potential kidney donor or an irrelevant organoid to the patient's serum. This ex vivo testing approach allows for tailoring nephrotic syndrome treatment to individual patients, predicting treatment response, and preventing drug toxicity.

Applications

- Personalized medicine for nephrotic syndrome patients.
- Drug discovery and development for nephrotic syndrome.
- Pre-transplant risk assessment for nephrotic
- Clinical diagnostic services for nephrotic syndrome.

Advantages

- Ex vivo testing of treatment efficacy for nephrotic syndrome.
- Tailoring treatment strategies to a specific patient (personalized approach).
- Prevention of drug toxicity.
- Avoiding patient exposure to ineffective drugs.
- Predicting the risk of nephrotic syndrome recurrence after kidney transplantation.

Invention Readiness

The technology is currently at the concept stage. Initial foundational work has been performed on culturing specific kidney cell types relevant to the system. Further studies are needed to develop a robust strategy for culturing primary human kidney cells as functional organoids or minimal kidney units. This will involve establishing and validating comprehensive genetic, biochemical, morphological, and functional assays to accurately determine disease state and activity within these models. Additionally, subsequent research will focus on developing and utilizing these assays to effectively examine the impact of various medications and therapeutic strategies on disease progression and activity within the organoid system.

IP Status

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