Dr. Allison Eddy, division chief, Pediatric Nephrology, investigates how normal kidney tissue is destroyed by fibrosis in response to injury.
The body's response to injury, whether due to illness, trauma or other insults, can help or hinder the healing process.
Understanding the body's response to injury at the cellular, tissue and whole organ level is essential to the development of therapeutic interventions that will promote meaningful survival without disability.
Researchers at Children's investigate this repair process using basic science tools at the molecular, cellular and animal model level.
The overall goal is to develop new clinical tools to manage, treat and eventually cure acute and chronic diseases of childhood.
At the present time several investigators at Children's are studying the cellular and molecular processes that regulate tissue response to injury.
The Nephrology research program is investigating pathogenetic mechanisms of progressive kidney disease, a process whereby normal renal tissue is destroyed by fibrosis in response to injury.
These studies encompass the basic science disciplines of matrix biology and bioengineering, molecular vascular biology and molecular coagulation and thrombolysis.
It has become apparent that many of these pathogenetic pathways are replicated in other solid organs that are destroyed by fibrosis — especially the lung, liver and heart.