| | |  | | NEWSLETTER ::: NO. 16 ::: JUNE 2018 | | FROM A SPARK TO A FLAME | | For eight years François Verrey has served as the director of the NCCR Kidney.CH. The physiologist, who was instrumental in the founding of this Swisswide research platform, looks back to its beginnings and gives an outlook on what the NCCR wants to achieve in the future. | Ten years ago, the idea of a Swiss-wide network on kidney research was born. The igniting spark was an upcoming call from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) for new Centres of Competence in Research (NCCRs). Many scientists working in kidney research at competing Swiss Universities and their hospitals felt the need to build a platform to share their knowledge. Jan Loffing—from the Institute of Anatomy in Zurich—and I were among those who were strongly convinced that it was time to bring our experience together to achieve faster progress in renal and homeostasis research for the benefit of kidney disease patients.
Official launch in 2010
In 2008, a number of renal researchers from various Swiss universities met several times in Bern at the Nephrology Department of Inselspital then headed by Felix Frey. This was the foundation stone upon which we built what was to become our successful application to the SNSF. To our great pleasure, the Swiss NCCR Kidney.CH was able to begin its activities in August 2010 with headquarters in Zurich. The focus of our NCCR was, and is, advancing the knowledge and understanding of renal homeostatic mechanisms controlling body composition (milieu intérieur) in health and disease.
Over the past eight years, I have had the honour and great pleasure to lead—together with Jan Loffing—the NCCR Kidney.CH. Throughout this time, we have had the support of a strong management office led originally by Matthias Meier and for the past four years by Jens Selige with the help of Katharina Thomas, who managed the accounting side perfectly from the outset.
Transition to phase 3
In August 2018, the third phase of the NCCR will start. Jan Loffing is taking over the leadership of Kidney.CH and Carsten Wagner, who joined the management team last summer, will function as co-leader. With these changes, we want to introduce new impulses to further advance kidney research and to ensure the continuation of the Swiss kidney research network’s activities beyond the end of SNSF financing, which is scheduled for 2022. It is essential that the NCCR Kidney.CH keeps alive its Swiss-wide dynamics and roots (CH stands not only for 'control of homeostasis' but, of course, also for Switzerland). This is also one of the major reasons why the NCCR is supported by a steering committee consisting of nine members that represent the different participating Swiss universities.
More research involving human subjects
During its first two phases, the NCCR Kidney.CH has continuously strengthened the human and clinical aspects of its research portfolio—for instance by initiating a funding vehicle for human/clinical projects (HCPs) at the beginning of phase II. So far, 26 HCPs supported with a combined total of nearly CHF 2 million have been funded. Most of these projects were strongly collaborative, thus further strengthening the exchange of knowledge within Switzerland. Half of the allotted budget went to studies involving human subjects, while another substantial part supported human-genome-wide association studies (GWAS), with all of them complementing ongoing work-package projects.
Collecting data across Switzerland
One of the most important initiatives supported by Kidney.CH is the Swiss Kidney Stone Cohort (SKSC), initiated in 2013. It was originally led by Reto Krapf, a clinician scientist working in Lucerne and Basel, and is now being managed by Olivier Bonny, MD–PhD, who works in Lausanne at the university and its hospital, and Carsten Wagner, from the Institute of Physiology in Zurich. This Swiss-wide cohort collects data from patients suffering from kidney stones and analyses and stores samples under identical conditions. With broad phenotyping, biobanking and longitudinal organization, this unique resource aims at enabling groundbreaking scientific research into this widespread and clinically very important disease.
Fostering a new generation
A central endeavour of Kidney.CH is to foster the next generation of kidney researchers. One of the important initiatives of the NCCR is the national translational nephrology blended e-learning teaching program. It has become a CAS/DAS (Certificate/Diploma of Advanced Studies) at the University of Bern and will be endorsed by the University of Zurich, and probably in the future also by those of Lausanne and Geneva.
Another very successful initiative is the Junior Grant programme. It aims at filling a funding gap in the career of many young kidney research scientists, just before they qualify for a first independent group leader position. Remarkable success stories of this programme include the Assistant Professorship of Sophie de Seigneux in Geneva and the Associate Professorship of David Hoogewijs in Fribourg—both former Junior Grant awardees.
|  | | | (NCCR Kidney.CH Retreat 2018 in Murten) |
Strengthening Swiss kidney research
Naturally, I can only mention certain important cornerstones of the NCCR Kidney.CH in this overview. With all our activities we aim to strengthen the Swiss kidney research network. And we are doing this by supporting renal researchers and by bringing them together at retreats, symposia and teaching events, and by attracting new kidney researchers to Switzerland, including group leaders such as Olivier Devuyst, Andrew Hall and Vartan Kurtcuoglu.
I wish all the very best for the future of Kidney.CH.
François Verrey | | | François Verrey François Verrey works at the Institute of Physiology of the University of Zurich and is the director of the NCCR Kidney.CH from August 2010 until July 2018. |
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| | | | Kidney - Control of Homeostasis | | is a Swiss research initiative, headquartered at University of Zurich, which brings together leading specialists in experimental and clinical nephrology and physiology from the universities of Bern, Fribourg, Geneva, Lausanne, and Zurich, and corresponding university hospitals. |
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