CureGN

ABSTRACT Cure Glomerulonephropathy (CureGN) is a National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)-sponsored, multi-center international consortium established in 2013 to study the natural history of glomerular diseases (minimal change disease, focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, membranous nephropathy, and IgA nephropathy), understand their underlying biology, develop biomarkers to resolve disease heterogeneity, and ultimately improve therapeutic options.

CureGN has made progress in: 1) establishing a large, ethnically diverse longitudinal observational cohort of glomerular disease patients; 2) creating a rich, well-curated clinical data set and linked biospecimens; 3) establishing the largest repository of digital kidney biopsies; and 4) an infrastructure that will facilitate translational and clinical research by core and ancillary study scientists.

This supplemental funding request is to measure serum antibodies to M-type phospholipase A2 receptor (anti- PLA2R levels) and thrombospondin type I domain-containing 7A (THSD7A) from the existing biosamples of the CureGN membranous nephropathy participants.

These biomarkers which were not widely clinically available at the time of CureGN launch have now been identified as key markers for disease pathogenesis, prognosis and therapeutic monitoring and are essential information for any study analyzing MN.

CureGN will use the Mayo Clinic BioPharma Diagnostics central laboratory which routinely performs these assays for research and clinical purposes.