Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a growing health problem that affects roughly 1.2 million Canadians. Untreated, CKD can lead to kidney failure, a condition that requires treatment with dialysis. Once on dialysis, patients experience poor health and a low quality of life. In addition, dialysis is a very expensive treatment for the Canadian Health System to provide, costing roughly $55,000-$80,000 per patient per year. Kidney failure and dialysis can be prevented if CKD is recognized early. For this reason, the National Kidney Foundation has declared early identification and treatment of CKD to be a priority. Unfortunately, our current ways of finding patients who are at risk of kidney failure are not perfect. Newer tests (biomarkers) have been created that could make finding patients at high risk of kidney failure better, but right now using these tests in clinics is difficult and expensive. Microfluidic Lab-on-Chip (LOC) based systems could make using these new tests easier and less expensive. In this project, we will develop convenient and easy-to-use microfluidic LOC systems for doing 5 of these new tests (hsCRP, NT-proBNP, FGF-23, IL-6, microRNA). Once developed we will then test how well these systems improve the care of patients with kidney disease in the real world.