Birth of an Idea
As a career researcher, I'm always looking for new areas to study. That's one of the main reasons I attend the annual American Diabetes Association meeting—to identify gaps in our knowledge of diabetes that I may be able to fill with new research.
In June 2016, I was at that meeting in New Orleans, and I was drawn to a session about the epidemiology of diabetic kidney disease (DKD).[1] Dr Jonathan Shaw from the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia, talked about "challenging the paradigm of DKD progression in diabetes."
We define DKD by low estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) or the presence of albuminuria, he said, but these two measures are not the same. Each confers its own level of risk for nephropathy progression, and the combination of the two is particularly potent. Furthermore, each measure is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality, but little is known about how much they jointly and independently contribute to poor outcomes.
Thus, an idea was born. Dr Shaw's remarks identified a knowledge gap that I decided I would try to fill.
Obtaining Funding
My work is almost entirely funded with "soft money," meaning that I am expected to bring in money from outside to cover 100% of my salary and that of my research team.
