CKD & MBD: what are the drivers of disease?

3' education - Apr. 10, 2012

Prof. John Cunningham, London, United Kingdom, discusses what are the responses to a decrease of GFR on kidney disease and how these can be triggered.
When GFR goes down there are a number of very powerful adaptive responses that are triggered, prof. Cunningham tells. Potentially those responses are very useful diagnostically. Phosphate plays an important role in chronic kidney disease. Lack of vitamin D is a critical part and a critical driver to the development of hyperparathyroidism, which is one of the very common developments in these patients

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About the speaker

John Cunningham is Professor of Nephrology at the Royal Free Hospital and University College London. Previously he was Professor of Renal and Metabolic Medicine at St Bartholomew’s and The Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry. His early training was in Cambridge (pre-clinical) and Oxford (clinical), with postgraduate training in The University of London and Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, USA. He has remained an active frontline clinician in both nephrology and internal medicine.

Research Summary

Professor Cunningham’s work includes: characterisation of the effect of acidosis on the bioactivation of vitamin D; the description of hysteresis in the parathyroid response to calcium; identification of factors mediating bone loss following renal transplantation and preventative strategies; control of parathyroid function in vivo, including effects of new vitamin D metabolites and calcimimetic agents. On these and other subjects, John Cunningham frequently lectures nationally and internationally, as well as serving on numerous international expert panels and working groups.