In the United Kingdom every year thousands of patients develop kidney failure. Unless the patients are lucky enough to receive a kidney transplant then they have to go onto dialysis. The process of dialysis is a machine, which cleans the blood and acts as a mechanical kidney. This costs a considerable amount of money to the country as a whole, but can also result in considerable cost to the patients themselves. The actual cost of one patient's dialysis treatment for a year exceeds £30,000. In the UK the government spends around £500 million per year on renal failure and it's treatment, in the US this figure exceeds $17 billion.

The process of dialysis is so demanding, that most have to change their lifestyle for good. Many patients have to give up work, leaving them in financial trouble. Added to this the process can be emotionally draining, leaving patients experiencing a poor quality of life.

What We Do

The Sheffield Kidney Research Foundation will fund the laboratories, which are part of the Sheffield Kidney Institute based at the Sheffield Teaching Hospital Campus, Sheffield. The Institute provides care and treatment facilities for a region which includes all of South Yorkshire, large parts of Derbyshire and Humberside and has already saved the lives of hundreds of people with kidney disease. With your help, and the help of the foundation, it could save thousands more.

The Sheffield Kidney Research Foundation (SKRF), was established with the aim of raising money to support scientific research into kidney related diseases. The Sheffield Kidney Research Fund was started 10 years ago by Professor El Nahas and Dr Colin Brown, who became increasingly frustrated by the lack of available funds for research which caused them to cancel projects due to lack of money.

The research takes place at the Sheffield Kidney Institute (SKI). The SKI carries out research at the Sheffield Teaching Hospital Campus, but it also has bases at the University of Sheffield. Funding is being sought to find a financial base, which will be used to develop the SKI into an international centre of excellence for kidney research.

SKRF plans to raise £1 million to support pioneer research into the study of the mechanisms involved in progressive kidney scarring. With this research it is hoped that a cure can ultimately be found. The money raised by the fund will provide a scientific infrastructure needed to establish the SKI as a leading centre for fundamental laboratory and clinical investigation into kidney diseases.

The fund also aims to provide an incentive to British scientists who constantly are forced to leave the country after their research projects are cancelled because of funds running out. They seek funding in other countries to continue their valuable research. The fund offers to resolve this problem by providing adequate funding and good scientific facilities, which will allow scientists to undertake high quality research into kidney diseases in this country, to the ultimate benefit of kidney patients everywhere. Capital raised by the SKRF will secure the long-term employment of creative, high calibre scientists.

In the short term SKRF aims to raise funds for the support of ongoing research at SKI and associated research laboratories. This research is currently funded primarily through national and international research awards and grants.

Based at the Northern General campus of the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals in Sheffield, the fund provides money for the valuable work, which is carried out at the Sheffield Kidney Institute. The fund supports the salary of a scientist, that of a research nurse and pays the salary of the fund administrator Gerry New. It also buys valuable new equipment when funds allow and pays researchers when their grants run out.

If you require any more information on kidney disease or transplants then e-mail Gerry at Billy.Kidney@sheffield.ac.uk or visit our Links page