Renal Development and Regeneration Research Group

The Renal Development and Regeneration Research Group is a large group of energetic scientists researching the molecular regulation of kidney development, the potential use of stem cells to repair damaged kidneys and grow new kidneys, and the consequences of suboptimal fetal kidney development on adult health.

The group consists of Professor John Bertram, four Research Fellows (Dr. Georgina Caruana, Dr Jinhua Li and Dr. Karen Moritz), 7 PhD students, 1 Honours student and 5 grant funded Research staff.

The group receives funding from the NHMRC, NIH (USA), National Heart Foundation, Australian Kidney Foundation, Janssen-Cilag Pty. Ltd. and Monash University.

Our main research collaborators are based in the Department of Physiology (Monash), the University of Queensland, University of Mississippi and Ecole des Mines (Paris). The group has a strong national and international reputation and is very productive, publishing in excess of 75 papers in the past 5 years.

We utilise a full range of molecular and morphological techniques in our research. These include cell and tissue culture (including culture of whole embryonic mouse and rat kidneys, culture of specific subcompartments of developing kidneys, culture of specific cell lines), fluorescence-activated cell sorting FACS), laser capture microdissection, manual microdissection, imaging (including phase, DIC, fluorescence and confocal microscopy), whole mount and section in situ hybridisation histochemistry, RT-PCR, real time PCR, Northern and Southern blotting, gene microarrays, bioinformatics, and quantitative microscopy (image analysis, stereology). We conduct research in human kidneys and renal biopsies, wildtype, transgenic and knockout mice, rats and sheep.

Our research focuses on the issue of nephron number, both its determination during kidney development and the consequences of low nephron number (underendowment) in adulthood.

The number of nephrons in normal human kidneys ranges from approximately 300,000 to more than one million. No new nephrons are formed after birth. An increasing amount of evidence suggests that low nephron number (endowment) is associated with increased risk of developing hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Low nephron number may also explain in part the epidemic levels of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in some indigenous populations, including the Australian Aborigines. We conduct research on the molecular regulation of nephron development during embryogenesis and also examine the consequences of reduced nephron endowment in adulthood (hypertension and renal disease in indigenous populations).