I. Profile
The Renal Disease Prevention and Translational Medicine Research Center (hereinafter referred to as the "Center"), consisting of three laboratories: Stem Cell and Kidney Regeneration Laboratory, Tight Connection Function and Disease Laboratory, and Urinary Tumor Laboratory, was established in 2020. The laboratory, guided by the principle of openness, mobility, union, and competition, adheres to basic research and combines the multidisciplinary characteristics of the laboratory with the frontiers of contemporary life sciences to give full play to the advantages of the combination of universities and hospitals. It cultivates high-end talents, promotes domestic and international exchanges and cooperation, continuously improves the level of research, and strives to create an internationally advanced kidney disease research base. The main research directions of the center include: kidney tissue damage and repair mechanism research, tight junction biomedical characteristics research, kidney tumor stem cells and stem cell-based kidney organ tissue reconstruction research, and urinary system tumor prevention and treatment research.
II. The Team
The center currently has nine scientific research members, including eight members with doctoral degrees. Among them, two are with senior titles, two associate senior titles, four intermediate titles, and one scientific research assistant. One of the team member is responsible for Shandong Provincial Colleges and Universities Youth Innovation Talent Induction Program and two are doctoral supervisors. Team members have strong scientific research capabilities, harmonious relationships and strong collaboration capabilities. From an overall point of view, the educational level of the team members is relatively high; the title and academic relationship structure is reasonable; the three generations of the old, the middle-aged and the young are connected, and the reserve force is strong.
Professor Zhao Shengtian, President of Binzhou Medical University, is a second-level professor, doctoral supervisor of Shandong University, Director of Shandong Urinary System and Functional Reconstruction Engineering Laboratory, and Chairman of Shandong Hospital Association. He has been engaged in clinical and basic research in urology for a long time, including the molecular mechanism of acute and chronic kidney disease, kidney regeneration, urinary system tumors and andrology disease prevention and treatment research. He has presided over more than 10 national, provincial and ministerial-level projects and published more than 30 SCI papers as corresponding authors.
Professor Gong Yongfeng, Deputy Dean of School of Basic Medical Sciences, is doctoral supervisor of Qingdao University, Vice Chairman of Shandong Physiological Society and Director of the Institute of Tight Junction Function and Disease. Her research direction is to use genetic engineering and disease animal models to study the role and mechanism of tight junction transmembrane protein molecules in the onset and treatment of diabetes, hypertension, lipid metabolism disorders, and obesity-related renal complications. She has presided over a number of projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the American Heart Association and she has published many papers in EMBO J, PNAS and JASN as the first or corresponding author.
III. Academic Achievements
Based on the basic theories of developmental biology, we have established a system that allows human pluripotent stem cells to differentiate into specific kidney cell types. We have established a high-throughput drug screening system based on kidney organoids. Using traditional gene targeting and Crispr-cas technology, we have constructed a series of genetically engineered cells and animal models of tight junction transmembrane proteins, which can be used to reveal the biomedical properties of tight junctions and the molecular mechanisms involved in kidney physiology and disease, so as to discover new related diseases molecular targets and intervention strategies. The members of the center currently preside over a number of projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Shandong Natural Science Foundation, and Shandong Colleges and Universities Youth Innovation Talent Induction Program, with a total funding of more than RMB 10 million yuan.
IV. Infrastructure
At present, the laboratory has a total area of400 square meters, including ABI fluorescent quantitative PCR instrument, BMG multifunctional microplate reader, Proteinsample multifunctional imaging system, IITC mouse non-invasive blood pressure measurement system, ABI gradient PCR instrument, BECKMAN COULTER high-speed centrifuge and other scientific research equipment. At present, the center has a cell biology platform, a molecular biology experiment platform, a kidney pathology experiment platform, and an animal model experiment platform. The cell biology platform can carry out the separation, purification and culture of stem cells or somatic cells from the kidney and intestines, as well as the differentiation and signal pathway regulation of stem cells. The molecular biology experiment platform can not only carry out conventional gene cloning, quantitative PCR detection, molecular hybridization and other technologies, but also carry out CHIP experiments, screening of interacting proteins, separation and detection of urine subcomponents (such as exosomes), etc. The renal pathology experimental platform can carry out clinical kidney biopsy and multiple pathological techniques of experimental animal tissues, such as histopathology, immunopathology, molecular pathology, and ultramicropathology. The animal model experimental platform has more than 10 different strains of transgenic tool mice such as Cag-CRE, Tek-CRE, Aqp2-CRE, Nphs1-CRE, TRE-CRE, rtTA-Nephrin and Ggt-CRE, and can construct glomeruli Nephritis, diabetic nephropathy, ischemia-reperfusion injury and unilateral ureteral obstruction and other animal models of kidney disease.
