When it comes to kidney failure, 29-year-old Sean Molofee has had more experience than anyone would ever want. The St. Albert native’s battle with kidney disease began in his teenage years and led to a kidney transplant at age 26. Unfortunately he lost the transplant, due to complications, after just 36 hours.Molofee then went on dialysis, a life-saving procedure that mimics some of the blood-cleaning functions of the kidneys. Dialysis kept him alive but the procedure, which could take up to six hours and was repeated three times a week, amounted to what Molofee describes as “three and a half years of hell”.
Opening doors
The nightmare came to an end on January 29 of this year, when he received a new kidney from a deceased donor. “The successful transplant represents the opening of every door that closed on me when I first found out I had kidney failure,” Sean says, “a return to the life I once had.”
Molofee’s situation is not unusual. Approximately 25,000 Canadians live with kidney failure. Each day, 10 Canadians learn that their kidneys have failed and that their survival depends on dialysis or a kidney transplant. At the end of 2001, 3,500 Canadians were on a waiting list for an organ transplant, and 80% of those were waiting for a kidney.
“The short-term outcomes for kidney transplants have improved considerably,” says AHFMR Clinical Investigator Dr. Sita Gourishankar, a kidney-transplant researcher at the University of Alberta and a practising physician. “But in the longer term, we still have transplants that fail over time, resulting in patients' returning to dialysis, or dying. That’s why research in this area is so vital.”
Vital research
AHFMR Senior Scholar Dr. Ron Moore agrees. Dr. Moore, Sean’s transplant surgeon, is also a U of A researcher who studies bladder and prostate cancers. In addition he and co-workers are investigating strategies to prolong the life of transplanted organs.Dr. Gourishankar and Dr. Moore are among the 40 researchers across the province who have been offered a total of $22 million in funding this year by the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. With AHFMR support, Dr. Gourishankar will probe the mysteries of kidney-transplant failure. This is an exciting time for transplant research because scientists now have detailed genetic information about the inflammatory processes behind rejection. The answers may lead not only to new ways to prevent transplant rejection and failure, but also to new treatments for kidney disease and other diseases involving the immune system.
“If there’s one thing I’d throw myself behind, it’s transplantation research,” says Molofee, who is now looking forward to a future that will include training as a massage therapist. “Anything to help people get free from the dialysis machines has my full support. And for those with transplants, it would be great to see rejection become a problem of the past. To lose what I now have would be a crippling blow, both mentally and physically.”
Dr. Sita Gourishankar is an AHFMR Clinical Investigator and an assistant professor in the Division of Nephrology and Transplantation Immunology, in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Alberta. She also receives funding from Genome Canada, the University Hospital Foundation, and Amgen Canada Inc.
Dr. Ron Moore is an AHFMR Senior Scholar and professor in the University of Alberta Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine. He receives additional funding from the Kidney Foundation of Canada, the National Cancer Institute of Canada, and the Alberta Cancer Board.
Selected publications
Gourishankar S, Hunsicker LG, Jhangri GS, Cockfield SM, Halloran PF. The stability of
the glomerular filtration rate after renal transplantation is improving. Journal of the
American Society of Nephrology 2003 Sep;14(9):2387-2394.
Xiao Z, Brown K, Tulip J, Moore RB. Whole bladder photodynamic therapy for orthotopic superficial bladder cancer in rats: a study of intravenous and intravesical administration of photosensitizers. Journal of Urology 2003 Jan;169(1):352-356