University of Bristol to collaborate with Evotec to help treatment of kidney diseases

A new collaboration to help patients with nephrotic syndrome, a type of kidney disease, has been announced by the University of Bristol and Evotec SE.

Under the collaboration, Evotec will receive access to longitudinal samples from an international patient cohort, collected under a MRC funded global challenges project, which includes several hundreds of patients from Asia, India and Africa linked to anonymised clinical records.

Currently, diagnosis of nephrotic syndrome, which is a group of symptoms like proteinuria and edema that indicate kidneys are not working properly, remains challenging and current treatment regimens are mostly symptomatic.

Evotec will analyse the samples using its proprietary multi-omics platform EVOpanOmics. Expert teams at Evotec and Bristol will leverage Evotec’s data analytics and prediction platform EVOpanHunter to jointly identify key drivers of nephrotic syndrome disease progression and potential molecular targets for intervention as well as molecular markers for diagnosis.

Molecular patient data combined with clinical data is instrumental for the identification and validation of disease-relevant molecular mechanisms and targets. Stratification of patients according to disease-associated molecular mechanisms re-classify certain subtypes of the disease, i.e. steroid sensitive and steroid resistant nephrotic syndrome (“SSNS”, and “SRNS”, respectively) and deliver new starting points for the discovery of novel targeted therapies.

Dr Cord Dohrmann, Chief Scientific Officer of Evotec, commented:

“We are very pleased to further expand our molecular patient database in the field of kidney diseases through this collaboration with the University of Bristol. This unusual longitudinal study of nephrotic syndrome patients provides a unique basis to identify molecular markers for proper diagnosis as well novel molecular targets to develop disease-modifying therapeutics.”

Professor Moin Saleem, Director of Bristol Renal and Professor of Paediatric Renal Medicine at the University of Bristol, added:

“This is a unique collaborative opportunity with Evotec to interrogate valuable clinical samples from an international cohort using cutting-edge technology. Ultimately, it will benefit patients with nephrotic syndrome, where specific targeted therapies are desperately needed.”