Rare Kidney Diseases: New Translational Research Approach to Improve Diagnosis and Therapy
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Pathology, Diagnostics, and Therapeutics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2020) | Viewed by 57208
Special Issue Editors
Interests: clinical nephrology; hemodialysis; kidney transplantation; dialysis; chronic renal failure; transplantation; renal; kidney; chronic kidney failure; peritoneal dialysis; renal disease; kidney disease; fibrosis; transplant immunology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: rare kidney diseases; kidney cystic disorders; nephrolithiasis; genetic/genomic and biomolecular determinants of rare and complex renal diseases; chronic kidney disease
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Rare kidney diseases comprise a group of 150 different life-threatening or chronically debilitating disorders (e.g., Fabry Disease, autosomal recessive polycystic disease, medullary cystic disease, Alport Syndrome, primary hyperoxaluria, primary glomerulonephritis, systemic vasculitis, and familial/recurrent hemolytic uremic syndrome) that affect very small numbers of people (<1 in 2000 individuals in Europe and <200,000 in USA) with local or systemic manifestations. For several years, research and development of treatments in this field have been neglected in favor of more common diseases. The main reasons of the lack of interest in rare kidney diseases seem to be the small numbers of patients and limited epidemiological data on the natural history of many of these diseases.
Rare diseases can affect people differently. Even patients with the same condition can exhibit very different signs and symptoms, or there may be many subtypes of the same condition. This diversity constitutes a significant challenge to healthcare practitioners and scientists alike in terms of being able to acquire sufficient experience for the most appropriate and timely definition, diagnosis, and management.
Fortunately, in the last ten years, concerted efforts have led to a marked improvement in the understanding of these disorders. In particular, an important step forward has been taken with the employment of innovative technologies (including next-generation sequencing) in order to replace obsolete phenotypic classifications and to discover new useful diagnostic biomarkers. These new tools are in fact becoming part of routine clinical practice, increasing diagnostic accuracy and facilitating genetic counseling.
Moreover, biomedical research, providing insights into the pathologies of these rare diseases and elucidating their underlying mechanisms, is revealing new therapeutic avenues and driving the industry to develop safer and more effective orphan drugs.
Finally, in this field, it is desirable that in future, the cross-talk between basic scientists and clinicians could achieve a great clinical benefit also by improving the quality of life of these patients.
This Special Issue welcomes scientific contributions and critical reviews describing new pathogenetic insights, reporting novel and specific disease biomarkers and underlying new pharmacological targets or therapies for rare diseases of the kidney and urinary tract.
Prof. Dr. Gianluigi Zaza
Prof. Giovanni Gambaro
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- Rare kidney diseases
- new diagnostic biomarkers
- selection of novel therapeutic targets for rare and complex kidney disorders
- pharmacogenomics/genetics
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