Old Westbury, NY – A team of NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine researchers has won a $486,000 federal grant to study the cellular mechanisms leading to one type of kidney injury that can lead to permanent kidney damage.

The National Institutes of Health and its National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) awarded the grant to a team led by Kurt Amsler, Ph.D., Associate Dean of Research and Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at NYIT's College of Osteopathic Medicine. Amsler's team is collaborating with researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine to study the mechanisms that cause damage to kidney cells and loss of kidney function when the kidney is deprived of oxygen.

The damage, known as renal ischemia-reperfusion injury, often occurs after a heart attack, kidney transplant, or direct injury to the organ itself. At those times, oxygen supply to the kidney is compromised. The deprivation sets off a chain of chemical reactions that produces hydrogen peroxide and other reactive oxygen molecules that can cause irreversible damage to the kidney cells.

"It turns out that quite a bit of the damage happens when the oxygen comes back," said Amsler. "We're looking at how to protect the cells or minimize the damage caused by the production of hydrogen peroxide."

Research at NYIT will focus on examining cultures of kidney cells and conducting experiments that manipulate some of the chemical processes that interfere with normal kidney function and that eventually lead to cellular impairment.

Amsler said these studies could lead to the development of drugs that can minimize kidney damage caused by ischemia-reperfusion injury.

Amsler's team includes medical students Danielle Janosevic and Pegah Aalami-Harandi, an NYIT undergraduate student, Nancy Singh, and Lab Coordinator Josephine Axis.

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