Equipa

Head of the Group: Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics of Cardiometabolic and Renal Disorders

Areas of research and main goals:

The last decade has revealed that the prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in patients with different renal pathologies is much higher than previously thought, and progression to end-stage renal disease (ESRD), which often recommends dialysis or kidney transplantation (KTx), should be prevented or delayed in order to reduce morbidity and mortality. ESRD is particularly high in diabetic patients, in particular due to diabetic nephropathy. Clinical and/or experimental studies from our group, which includes researchers from different areas (pharmacology and therapeutics, urology and nephrology), have been focusing the attention on therapeutic strategies to improve response in three distinct situations of nephropathy: 1 – resistance to recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO) therapy in CKD patients under hemodialysis, 2 – cyclosporine-induced nephrotoxicity and 3 – diabetic nephropathy. As additional areas: 4 – discovery of new markers of cardiometabolic risk in population of cardiovascular disease; 5 – test putative new options for bladder cancer prevention and treatment. The main goals are: a) - elucidate the mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology of those disorders; b) - estimate whether drug-induced toxicity could be ameliorated and b) - evaluate the efficacy of drugs for disease prevention/treatment.