UTSW O'Brien Kidney Research Core Center: Clinical and Translational Research Core

Overview of Services

A major goal of the O’Brien Kidney Center is to translate basic science research into effective diagnostic and therapeutic strategies that will improve the lives of patients by interrupting the pathogenesis of chronic kidney disease and its attendant high risk of cardiovascular disability and death.

 

Over the past 30 years, a large investment in biomedical research has led to substantial improvements in patient care and extended life in the general population. The Clinical and Translational Research Core is designed to encourage new collaborative efforts that tear down traditional silos between basic and clinical investigators. The primary objective is to support the highest quality clinical and translational research in kidney disease and associated cardiovascular disease by funded Center Investigators. 

 

In addition to study populations available to investigators through their own initiatives, an important aspect of the O’Brien Kidney Center is access to the Dallas Heart Study population, a unique resource available at U.T. Southwestern Medical Center.

 

Distinctive Features of the Clinical and Translational Research Core

 

Traditionally, human renal and cardiovascular physiology studies have been performed on small selected study samples, while human genetic epidemiology studies have been conducted in large populations without physiological measurements, i.e., without intermediate phenotypes. Our Core is designed to combine state-of-the-art comprehensive human genetics with detailed state-of-the-art phenotyping of subjects drawn from unique study samples with unprecedented minority representation (below).

 

 

In this regard, a major strength of the Clinical and Translational Research Core is the availability of the Dallas Heart study—a large multiethnic population-based cohort with over 50 percent of the participants being African American—and the longitudinal cohort of the African American Study of Kidney Disease and Hypertension (AASK).

 

The Clinical and Translational Research Core will coordinate the recruitment of study participants for O’Brien Kidney Center.

Center Investigators and provide them with state-of-the-art phenotypic measurements of human renal and cardiovascular structure and function. Unique capabilities range from microelectrode recordings of sympathetic action potentials to proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic measurements of renal and cardiac steatosis – specific pathophysiological processes that could provide a common mechanistic explanation for the remarkably tight link between cardiac and renal disease as well as identifying novel therapeutic drug targets for early intervention sufficiently early to prevent (rather than merely delay) clinical endpoints such as end-stage renal disease, stroke, myocardial infarction and death.

 

Services

 

In addition to study populations available to investigators through their own initiatives, an important aspect of the O’Brien Kidney Center is access to the Dallas Heart Study population, a unique resource available at U.T. Southwestern Medical Center.

 

  • Human research protocol design and implementation
  • Assistance with study participant recruitment and management
  • Regulatory document preparation and monitoring
  • Biostatistical support for study design and analysis
  • Data collection for phenotyping human research subjects
  • Blood and urine sample collection, preparation, storage, and transportation
  • Ambulatory blood pressure
  • Flow-mediated dilation
  • Pulse wave velocity
  • Central aortic pressure
  • Laboratory measurements: Iothalamate clearance, creatinine, urine TGF-beta, urine MCP-1, other

 

 Links and Resources

  1. O'Brien Kidney Center Overview
  2. O'Brien Kidney Center Core Services
  3. O'Brien Kidney Center Animal Models Core
  4. O'Brien Kidney Center Physiology Core
  5. O'Brien Kidney Center Cell Biology and Imaging Core
  6. O'Brien Kidney Center Clinical and Translational Core

Contacts

Name Role Phone Email Location
Orson W. Moe, M.D.
O'Brien Kidney Center Director
 

 
orson.moe@utsouthwestern.edu
 

 
Wanpen Vongpatanasin, M.D.
Clinical and Translational Research Core Co-Director
 
214-648-2103
 
wanpen.vongpatanasin@UTSouthwestern.edu
 

 
Robert Toto, M.D.
Clinical and Translational Research Core Co-Director
 
214-648-2600
 
robert.toto@UTSouthwestern.edu
 

 

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