Ann Wyn Sherman Research Award
The Ann Wyn Sherman Research Award is awarded to a collaborative project involving researchers at paediatric and adult centres across the UK.
The Award will establish the Ann Wyn Sherman Kidney Tissue Bank as a pilot to create a national resource to accelerate advances in childhood autoimmune research.
Glomerulonephritis (GN) is an invisible, life changing autoimmune disease. It means inflammation in the kidneys that happens due to the kidney being a target for the body’s over reactive immune system. There is a huge unmet need in understanding why the condition affects the kidneys and this lack of information means that many patients go on to get kidney failure. The project is intended to enable the rapid progression of understanding mechanisms of autoimmune glomerulonephritis.
The project will change the way science is done in nephrology. The data yielded will drive autoimmune discovery science on a large scale. This will be the first of its kind for the UK paediatric nephrology community and has the potential to become the largest accessible resource of its kind internationally. It will impact the entire community invested in researching autoimmunity and will leave a long-lasting legacy in honour of the generous personal donation by Mrs Sherman.
The co-applicants and collaborators of this project are:
Alder Hey Hospital: Dr Louise Oni, Paediatric Nephrology Consultant and Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Nephology, University of Liverpool; Dr Andrew Chetwynd, Tenure Track Fellow; Dr William Simmons, Paediatric histopathologist.
Great Ormond Street Hospital: Professor Stephen Marks, Professor of Paediatric Nephrology; Dr Matko Marlais, Paediatric Nephrologist; Professor Neil Sebire, Professor of Paediatric and Developmental Pathology.
Royal Liverpool Hospital: Dr Ani Rao, Consultant Nephrologist.
Leicester Academic Renal Unit: Professor Jonathan Barratt, The Mayer Professor of Renal Medicine; Dr Haresh Selvaskandan, KRUK clinical research fellow.
The duration of the project is 2 years.