Managing acute kidney injury (AKI) can be challenging, in part because evidence about when to begin treatment — namely, dialysis and other forms of renal replacement therapy that artificially filter the blood — is quite limited and offers conflicting perspectives. Read More

When the kidneys – vital organs for filtering the body’s entire blood supply – become injured, it can set in motion an unfortunate chain of events that leads to a decline in health. Sometimes, in response to chronic injury, the body begins an aberrant repair process known as fibrosis, in which normal fibroblast cells transform into myofibroblasts, proliferate out of control, migrate and form scar tissue. Once scar tissue begins to form, functional cells begin to die, and the scar tissue multiplies. Investigators have been looking for a way to break this cycle, and new findings indicate that a gene known as SMOC2 may point the way to a new intervention that could prevent this cascade of events. Read More