Professor Phil Kalra

Collaboration could bring new insights in diabetic kidney disease

MultiOmic Health, an artificial intelligence-enabled precision medicine discovery company,  has agreed a research collaboration agreement with Northern Care Alliance (NCA) NHS Foundation Trust. MultiOmic will deploy its MOHSAIC® platform on de-identified bio-samples and clinical histories previously collected by NCA to investigate patient stratifying biomarkers in diabetic nephropathy using integrative multi-omics analyses.

“This collaboration involves our Salford Kidney Study (one of the largest chronic kidney disease cohorts in the world) with a specific focus on a diabetic sub-cohort,” said Professor Phil Kalra (pictured), Director of Research & Innovation at NCA and a leading kidney specialist in UK clinical research and nephrologist education. “I am particularly excited by the use of multiple omics modalities in the analysis which could lead to new insights that greatly improve patient prognosis. This is a major step on the way towards personalised medicine in a very common but serious condition.”

“Diabetic nephropathy is a chronic multi-factorial disease driven by a complex interplay between inherited factors and the cumulative effect of diet, lifestyle and environmental exposures,” said Slaven Stekovic, Chief Scientific Officer at MultiOmic.

“Traditional genome-wide association studies (GWAS) looking only at the genome have been unable to explain the disease progression of the vast majority of chronic kidney disease patients,” said Ariella Cohain, Chief Technology Officer at MultiOmic. “By integrating the genome, epigenome, proteome and metabolome, we aim to gain a deeper understanding of all the factors which drive this debilitating disease.”

30% to 40% of diabetics eventually develop chronic kidney disease1. Diabetic kidney disease patients now account for an estimated $300 billion per year2 in global healthcare costs. Recently published research indicates that the risk of developing type 2 diabetes3 or incurring kidney damage4 in later life is increased in COVID-19 survivors, leading to an expected acceleration in disease prevalence over the next two decades.

For avoidance of doubt, all patient information provided to MultiOmic by its research collaborators is de-identified, fully consented and in compliance with relevant privacy and data protection legislation, regulations and guidance, including but not limited to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in both the European Union and the United Kingdom.

 

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