The investigators propose to study novel targets of rituximab in podocytes, with a particular
focus on recurrent focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). The proposed study has strong
clinical implications, since it may extend the approved indications for rituximab treatment
to recurrent FSGS as well as to other proteinuric diseases. Furthermore, it will offer new
insights into the role of sphyngomyelin related enzymes in podocyte function in health and
disease, thus allowing the identification of novel targets for antiproteinuric drug
development. Finally, the proposed study offers the opportunity to identify a correlation
between the patient's specific clinical outcome and the experimental results obtained after
exposing podocytes to patient sera in the presence or absence of rituximab. Therefore, it may
lead to the development of an assay for the pre-transplant identification of patients at
high-risk for recurrent disease and, among them, may allow the identification of those
patients that will respond to rituximab.
Phase:
Phase 3
Details
Lead Sponsor:
George W. Burke
Collaborators:
Genentech, Inc. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) National Institutes of Health (NIH)