PFI-RP: Partnership for Innovation - Avoiding Kidney Injuries with Evidence-Based Smart Technology

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation – Research Partnerships (PFI-RP) project is to develop a new technology that improves the ability of doctors to diagnose acute kidney injury in hospitalized patients. Acute kidney injury is a medical condition which begins without clinical symptoms or signs, and has been estimated to occur in up to 20% of hospitalized patients.

Acute kidney injury results in significant harm to patients as well as greatly increased overall health care costs. Acute kidney injury is generally not recognized early in its course. Currently available methods used to diagnose acute kidney injury are imperfect.

Recognition of acute kidney injury using presently available methods is delayed and only occurs after the development of significant organ dysfunction. The technology that will be developed in this PFI-RP project may detect acute kidney injury earlier so that treatment can be rendered.

This project will develop a new technology for continuous, real time measurement and real time analysis of urinary biomarkers of acute kidney injury. Specifically, a system for continuous measurement of urine components will be developed and built. This system will be used to measure and quantify urine components and develop a model of early acute kidney injury. A machine learning prediction model will be developed and tested with the model system.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.