Newswise — The Urothelial Biology Team at NYU School of Medicine received an $8.2 million, five-year program project (P01) grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) at the National Institutes of Health to continue groundbreaking research on bladder biology and diseases including urinary tract infection (UTI).
The Urothelial Biology Team is an integral unit of the NYU Center of Excellence on Urological Diseases consisting of professors from multiple disciplines. Led by Tung-Tien Sun, PhD, Rudolph L. Baer Professor of Dermatology and professor in the Departments of Cell Biology, Pharmacology and Urology, the team includes Xiangpeng Kong, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry, Gert Kreibich, PhD, professor of cell biology, Angel Pellicer, MD, PhD, professor of pathology, and Xue-Ru Wu, MD, professor of urology and pathology and vice chairman for urological research.
“We are pleased to have received this grant from NIDDK to support this multidisciplinary research program,” said Vivian S. Lee, MD, PhD, MBA is senior vice president and vice dean for science, chief scientific officer of NYU Langone Medical Center. “The work of the Urothelial Biology Team is a testament to NYU School of Medicine’s commitment to fostering collaborative research in an effort to understand the root cause of diseases and develop novel strategies for treatment.”
The team is currently studying how the urothelium, the main cell type that covers the luminal surface of the bladder, forms a highly effective barrier, and how bacteria cause urinary tract infection (UTI). The team hopes to understand how the disease-causing bacteria interact with and invade the host urothelial cells, a process common in recurrent UTI. UTI is the most common cause of bloodstream infections by E. coli which cause 40,000 deaths from sepsis each year in the United States.1 Uncomplicated UTIs alone are responsible for an estimated $1-2 billion in direct healthcare costs in the United States annually.1 Abnormalities in bladder urothelial cells are involved in several other important urologic diseases including overactive bladder, painful bladder syndrome, which mainly affects women 2, and bladder cancer which is the fourth most common cancer in men 3 and the most expensive cancer to manage. Treatment of these diseases costs the American public almost $11 billion annually.4
“Dr. Sun and his multidisciplinary team are uniquely poised to address key questions regarding the structure and function of the bladder urothelium,” said Chris Mullins, PhD, director of Basic Cell Biology Programs, Division of Kidney, Urologic and Hematologic Diseases, NIDDK. “Their work is expected to yield significant insights into the role these cells play in urinary tract infections.”
NIDDK is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Institute conducts and supports basic and clinical research on many of the most serious diseases affecting public health. The program project (P01) award is for the support of a broadly-based multidisciplinary or multifaceted research program which has a well-defined major objective and is directed toward a range of scientific questions having a central research focus.
For more information on the NYU Urothelial Biology Team, please visit the NYU Department of Urology website at http://urology.med.nyu.edu/research/laboratory-research and Dr. Sun’s website at http://sun-lab.med.nyu.edu/. For more information on the NIDDK, please visit http://www2.niddk.nih.gov/.
About NYU Langone Medical Center:NYU Langone Medical Center is one of the nation's premier centers of excellence in healthcare, biomedical research, and medical education. For over 170 years, NYU physicians and researchers have made countless contributions to the practice and science of health care. Today the Medical Center consists of NYU School of Medicine, including the Smilow Research Center, the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, and the Sackler Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences; and the NYU Hospitals Center, including Tisch Hospital, a 705-bed acute-care general hospital, Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, the first and largest facility of its kind, and NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases, a leader in musculoskeletal care, a Clinical Cancer Center and numerous ambulatory sites.
References1.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/16/1/88.htm2.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): http://www.cdc.gov/NCCDPHP/DACH/ic.htm3.American Cancer Society: http://www.cancer.org/docroot/cri/content/cri_2_4_1x_what_are_the_key_statistics_for_bladder_cancer_44.asp4.National Institutes of Health (NIH): http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/may2007/niddk-01.htm
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