The Johns Hopkins O’Brien Center to Advance Kidney Health Equity
Summary
The overarching goal of the Johns Hopkins O’Brien Center to Advance Kidney Health Equity is to serve as a national resource for investigators conducting pre-clinical (basic), clinical or population health research addressing or related to kidney health disparities, and to make recommendations to inform strategies, interventions, and approaches aimed at achieving kidney health equity. The resources and services available from the Johns Hopkins O’Brien Center (JHOC) support this overarching goal.
Biomedical Resource Core (BRC)
-
Description
The Biomedical Resource Core (BRC) provides a portfolio of research services, resources, and tools to understand and ameliorate disparities in kidney disease, with a focus on dietary and social stressors that drive kidney health disparities. The BRC is comprised of two laboratories, detailed below, which provide services and resources for the conduct of pre-clinical, clinical and population research relevant to advancing kidney health equity,
-
Services
- Clinical Science Dietary and Social Stressor Laboratory (C-DSSL) Services
Through a health equity lens, the C-DSSL will provide consultative services, validated protocols with well-established quality assurance/quality control procedures, and access to materials and equipment, with appropriate external resources. The C-DSSL will execute pilot studies or larger research projects and potential access to our community-based clinical research unit. Resources and services include the following:
- Biomarker measurement - Clinical Chemistry
- Biomarker measurement - Immunoassays
- Biorepository support - Processing aliquoting, short- and long-term sample storage
- Biostatistical support (including clinical trials, epidemiological cohorts, case-control studies, survey data, and -omics studies)
- Consultation on design and features of translational studies in the community
- Dietary assessment services to investigate dietary patterns and biomarkers of dietary intake and food metabolism
- Genomics dataset w/ deep phenotyping
- Healthy volunteer samples for Reference Range
- Images w/ deep phenotyping
- Initial project consultation to select appropriate Clinical Science Dietary and Social Stressor Laboratory resources
- Kidney Precision Medicine Center of Excellence (KPMCOE)—EMR registry
- Large longitudinal cohort study data from racially and socioeconomically diverse populations
- Metabolomics dataset w/ deep phenotyping
- Polymer synthesis for making nanoparticles
- Prospective remnant sample collection
- Proteomics dataset w/ deep phenotyping
- Publicly accessible biospecimen repositories and datasets to support or conduct biomarker studies and secondary data analyses
- Stored biospecimen samples from completed studies
- Study design consultation and data and biobanked specimens from studies on behavioral interventions for lifestyle changes
- Study design, Clinical Science Dietary and Social Stressor Laboratory
- Basic Science Dietary and Social Stressor Laboratory (B-DSSL)
The B-DSSL will provide investigators with comprehensive services and resources for preclinical research to determine the mechanistic underpinnings of human health disparity stressors, using mice as a model system. Resources and services include the following:
- Bioinformatic Analysis
- Comprehensive mouse kidney phenotyping for diet and stress mechanisms
- Germ-free facility consultation use
- Germ-free sample banks
- GFR measurements
- Humanized mouse diet protocols
- Immunological manifestations of dietary and social stressors in the kidney
- Initial project consultation to select appropriate Basic Science Dietary and Social Stressor Laboratory resources
- Isolated Nephron segment Dissection
- Isolated Nephron segment Ex Vivo Analysis
- Kidney Slice Preparation
- Kidney Slice Preparation
- Metabolic Cage and Clearance Studies
- Metabolism phenotyping
- Microbiome
- Mouse biobank of dietary and social stress models
- Optical Clearing
- Plasma and Urine Electrolyte Panels
- Protocols, training, and service to isolate and characterize kidney immune cells by flow cytometric analysis (FACS)
- Small Sample RNAseq in Isolated Nephron Segments
- Study design, Basic Science Dietary and Social Stressor Laboratory
- Telemetric Blood pressure Monitoring
- Clinical Science Dietary and Social Stressor Laboratory (C-DSSL) Services
Contact Information
If you would like more information regarding services provided by Johns Hopkins O’Brien Center to Advance Kidney Health Equity, please contact:
Mary Ann Stephens
Website