Consultants, clinical research fellows, PA holders, internship holders and allied health professionals from the Donal O’Donoghue Renal Research Centre (DRRC) shared their progress on research projects with the wider renal team at a Collaborative Research Meeting.
Professor Phil Kalra outlined recent DRRC achievements including the three PhDs and one MD awarded, 88 publications in peer-reviewed journals during the last 16 months, recruitment of two DRRC internships and support of eight APEP students from The University of Manchester. Our DRRC PPIE group is continuously growing, and we already have 16 members. Since the last Collaborative Research Meeting in September 2024, we have received funding for six research projects from industry partners, including Novartis, AstraZeneca, Randox, Medice and Boehringer Ingelheim. In the coming months we will be focusing on grant applications and to identify funding calls.
Rebecca Pearce, our first internship holder, provided an update about the PPIE group, its recruitment, membership and meeting format. It has its own terms of reference and we have developed an online introduction to the PPIE group facilitators and a form for anyone interested in input from the PPIE for all stages of research.
Professor Helen Hurst summarised the findings from her recent NIHR development grant “KidneEy older person Assessment (EDNA)”. This is investigating to what extent comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) and/or component parts are implemented in UK renal units and how a set of outcomes for a study of CGA in the outpatient nephrology settings has been defined through stakeholder engagement.
From our consultants with funded research time in their job plans:
- Dr Nina Brown outlined the importance of the development and implementation of a digital package for patients with ANCA vasculitis using stakeholder engagement with patients and clinicians. This will lead to the determination of outcome measures and methods of collection to capture impact on shared decisions and support health economics data collection.
- Dr Francesco Rainone explained diagnosis and management of the monoclonal gammopathy of renal significance (MGRS) patients and his involvement in the British Journal of Haematology best practice guidelines on MGRS management. A new Northwest MDT was established in April 2024 and up to now 29 amyloid cases and six MGRS cases have been discussed.
- Dr Rachel Middleton presented her interest in several topics relating to kidney transplantation research: Annual dietetic review in renal transplant patients, implementation of vaccines to reduce recurrent urine infections and review of transplant patients for prevalence of melanoma and non-melanomatous skin cancer.
Some of our research fellows presented updates on their work:
- Dr Hannah O’Keeffe summarised her activities on several projects including late presentation of CKD, a quality improvement project (RevOCE), examining outcomes of patients in a pre-dialysis clinic, improvement of CKD in two communities in the UK and a future project on utilisation of PeeSpot – home urine testing to increase screening for those at risk of kidney failure.
- Dr Lino Merlino showed recent findings regarding his work on cognitive impairment and dementia in CKD (pictured above). He is using the TriNetX platform to further evaluate the risk of cognitive impairment in patients with CKD. Lino is also interested in association between CKD, dementia risk and testosterone replacement therapy.
- Dr Heliana Morato recently started working on managing acute risk in cardiorenal care. She is exploring the data from existing cohorts (via triNetX) and performing interventional studies that include quality improvement and health economics.
- Dr Han Sean Lee is focused on evaluating cardiovascular risks and sudden cardiac death in patients with end-stage renal disease. Sean is also working on a project related to high-risk haemodialysis non-attendance (psychological factors and outcomes).
The next DRRC Collaborative Research Meeting will be held in November 2025.