We will train young scientists to combat cardiovascular burden in chronic kidney disease by providing them with excellent scientific, technological and complementary skills to generate innovative insights in the pathology of the cardiorenal syndrome, and translate these into innovative clinical products. Ultimately, this will improve diagnosis as well as therapy of the cardiorenal syndrome and reduce the socio-economic burden of this disease.
Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) exhibit a massively increased risk for cardiovascular events: 50% of patients with CKD stage 4-5 suffer from cardiovascular disease (CVD), and cardiovascular mortality accounts for ~40-50% of all deaths in patients with CKD stage 4 as well as patients with end-stage renal disease, compared with 26% in controls with normal kidney function. With 10-13% of people presenting CKD and CVD accounting for ~9% of total health care costs, the socio-economic burden of this cardiovascular-renal pathology, referred to as the cardiorenal syndrome, is extremely high.
Recent studies have revealed that CKD itself is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular events. This may explain in part why traditional strategies to improve cardiovascular outcome have largely failed in the context of CKD. Also, this emphasizes the need to identify CKD-specific pathology, biomarkers and targets for CVD, in order to reduce the increased cardiovascular mortality in CKD patients through novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.
Our consortium will organize a multidisciplinary training programme for early-stage researchers (ESRs) to enable them translating knowledge and ideas in the field of the cardiorenal syndrome into innovative research and products.