From GetBucks, United Kingdom
Barbara Smith recently raised nearly £2000 by wing walking, a present bought for her by the staff and pupils at her last school
Recently retired Barbara Smith, from Chalfont St Giles, took part in the challenge for a leading kidney disease research charity
A retired head teacher raised nearly £2,000 for a leading kidney disease research charity by taking part in a wing walking experience recently.
Babara Smith, Sylecroft Road, Chalfont St Giles, suffers from polycystic kidney disease (PKD), a genetic and hereditary disorder whereby abnormal cysts grow in the kidneys.
Staff and pupils at Selborne School, Ealing, London, got together and bought her the wing walking experience as a retirement gift, which was presented to her at her retirement party in July this year.
Mrs Smith, who was a head teacher at various schools for the past 20 years, and was teaching for the past 40, said of the flight, which she did in September: “It was scary and exhilirating.”
But added: “It was a really exciting thing to do.”
Mrs Smith highlighted the fact that there are only three and a half thousand people on the transplant list, and said that the majority of those were waiting for a new kidney, which is one of the reasons why she wanted to do this.
It was inspired, she said, after she gave a motivational assembly to some of the school children when she came up with the idea of doing another challenge, having done a number of fundraisers for the charity in the past.
“It was a motivational assembly and that was when I came up with the idea of doing another challenge,” she said.
And added: “They [the children] all think I’m totally mad, but why not? You have got to do something, haven’t you? Something you have got to enjoy. Material things, they come and go, but experiences like this are really special.”
The challenge, as mentioned in the Chalfont St Giles community email newsletter, was inspired by trips to air shows when she was younger. [Read more]
About 90 participants walked the exterior loop around LeTourneau University on Saturday to help in the fight against a leading cause of kidney failure.
The walk was to raise funds and awareness for polycystic kidney disease, at the 9th Annual East Texas Walk for PKD hosted by the East Texas PKD Foundation.
"The things we really focus on are education, information from top research scientists to help the patients know the best things they can do for themselves," said Teresa Andrus, Volunteer Chapter Coordinator for the East Texas PKD Foundation. "We also really encourage people to come for support. All of us need encouragement; this is a tough disease — chronic pain and fatigue are involved for most of us."
Andrus was diagnosed with PKD at age 22 in 1968 and was part of a clinical, surgical research study, which she credits with saving her life.
Polycystic kidney disease is a genetically inherited disorder that causes clusters of cysts to develop on the kidneys, according to the Mayo Clinic website.
"My husband suffers from PKD, and he just received a transplant in June and his donor set up a booth here," 39-year-old Melissa Navarro of Tyler said. "There is not a cure, and there's a lot of people who suffer from PKD and they need donations and support from the community."
While there are treatments for PKD and lifestyle changes patients can make to manage the disease, there is no cure. PKD is the fourth leading cause of kidney failure, and about half of PKD patients develop kidney failure by age 50, according to the PKD Foundation website.
One Longview man with PKD, Roger Kulig, has had both kidneys removed and is on dialysis awaiting a transplant because of the severity of his cysts on his kidneys caused by the disease.
"People need to be aware that (PKD) could already be in their body, and there's no way to know unless you go to the doctor and designate to do a sonogram," Kulig said. "PKD is something you just don't happen to know (you have). Normally, people walking around don't know they have it until they have a pain that's unknown."
Kulig began showing symptoms of PKD at age 55 and had to have both kidneys removed after cysts on the organs had grown so large that he had trouble walking and eating.
East Texas PKD Foundation member Madalene Miller received a kidney transplant in 2008 at Memorial Hermann hospital in Houston.
"I want people to know that there is no cure and there is no real treatment, other than a transplant," Miller said. "If you have the disease in your family, there is hope and they can extend that hope by participating in some of the research studies that the foundation is sponsoring. That's why we do this walk, so we can raise more funds."
There are more than 40 clinical studies recruiting patients for PKD in the U.S., according to the PKD Foundation website, www.pkdcure.org.
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“There is no cure for it, so they basically treat him for it to prolong the inevitable. The end stage is renal failure and he will need a transplant,” said Cindy Green, Jay’s wife.
On Saturday, October 10, the Southeast Iowa Kidney Walk will take place on the Indian Hills Community College campus. Registration will be open at the walk and there is no fee to enter. A free-will donation is accepted, but you do not have to donate to take part in the event.
The walk will begin at 10 a.m. outside of IHCC’s Advanced Technology Building. The walk is approximately one mile in length.
All proceeds, from the Southeast Iowa Kidney Walk, will go to the National Kidney Foundation to aid in research. None of the monies collected will go to the Greens.
“He is going to have to have a transplant soon, he is on the waiting list for a new kidney,” said Cindy Green.
Unfortunately, Cindy is not a match for Jay. However, there family is holding out hope and trusting in God that Jay will receive a compatible kidney donation.
If you would like to find out more information about becoming a kidney donor, click here.
Gift of Life
From Wales Online, United Kingdom
Mum Helen Williams was born with polycystic kidney disease, an inherited condition which would have resulted in kidney failure.
Her husband Craig, who works as a consultant anaesthetist at Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend, made the selfless decision to give her one of his kidneys to make sure that never happened.
But while they shared the same blood group, Helen’s very high antibody count meant there was a serious risk her body would reject the kidney.
So the couple took part in a rare, three-way exchange which meant Craig’s kidney was donated to a stranger and resuscitation officer Helen received another stranger’s healthy kidney in return.
Helen, who has an 11-year-old daughter called Eleri, has backed December’s introduction of a new law in Wales which means people will be regarded as having consented to organ donation after their death unless they have opted out.'Live life, love life and donate life'
Today, Assembly Members will consider exceptions where consent should still be expressed, such as body parts including the brain.
Living donors who lack the mental capacity to express a view could also be deemed to consent to donation by experts acting in their best interests.
Speaking of the changes, which come into effect on December 1, Helen said: “It’s a personal choice, but I strongly believe if you are prepared to receive a donated organ to save your life you should be prepared to give when you are dead and no longer need it.
“My motto is: live life, love life and when you go donate life." [Read more]
PKD Research
From The Australian, by John Ross
The achievement, reported in the journal Nature, represents a major step forward in stem cell technology.
The researchers made headlines two years ago when they grew disc-like kidney “organoids” in the lab. But the new version is bigger and more developed, comprising all dozen or so cell types found in the kidneys of a three-month-old human foetus. The earlier attempt comprised just two cell types.
The new organ was produced almost entirely from “pluripotent” stem cells, which are re-engineered from adult tissue such as skin. The 2013 version was grown from embryonic stem cells.
Team leader Melissa Little said the improved attempt still lacked the structure of a real kidney, with major blood vessels and exit plumbing for urine. “It’s not a kidney, it’s a kidney model,” said Professor Little, of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne. “But it’s a hell of a lot better than we’ve had before.”
She said the approach could be used for drug screening in as little as two years, potentially saving drug developers hundreds of millions of dollars. The kidney is one of the organs typically poisoned by drugs, along with the liver and heart.
The kidney is one of the organs typically poisoned by drugs, along with the liver and heart, and problems often only show up during expensive phase two and three trials. Using lab-derived organs could circumvent this, exposing toxicity issues early on.
Other possible applications include using lab-grown kidneys to identify inherited genetic mutations, or to generate reconditioned cells for injection back into patients. A longer term goal would be to grow replacement kidneys with no danger of rejection by the immune system, because they were derived from patients’ own cells — a godsend for the tens of thousands of Australian kidney disease patients who need dialysis to survive.
Professor Little said this would be an “enormous undertaking” requiring buy-in from biotechnology companies. “Even if we knew how to do it — and there’s a huge amount of additional research we’d have to do — just to build a facility of sufficient quality control and safety (would cost) tens of millions of dollars. You don’t do that on research grants.
“(But) now we now have an opportunity to make the right cell types for the patient, and in large numbers.
From MedGadget
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