Leaders: Professor Jonathan Shaw, Professor Mark Cooper, Dr Anne Reutens
Diabetic kidney disease is one of the most common and serious complications of diabetes. Although several treatments are currently available to both prevent and treat it, these are only partially effective, and diabetes remains the leading cause of kidney failure in Australia, and in most other countries. To address this, we are leading a multi-centre trial, funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Baker Institute with support from the European biotech company, Genkyotex. The study will recruit people with type 1 diabetes and the early stages of kidney disease, in order to determine if a drug that inhibits the enzymes NOX1 and NOX4 can slow down the progression of the kidney disease. Much of the work showing that NOX enzymes are involved in diabetic kidney disease was undertaken in Monash University’s laboratories.
The study will be run at 14 diabetes units across Australia, and recruitment will begin towards the end of 2017. The treatment period for each participant will be 12 months and the study is due to be completed in 2020.