THE Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) secures a P1 million research funding grant from the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) to strengthen kidney transplant research in Mindanao.
Kidney transplant is one of the most common surgeries for people with chronic kidney disease. To prevent the body's organ rejection, the kidney recipients are maintained on drugs. This research will correlate the patient's genes to the dose of this drug intake to ensure safer and more accurate monitoring of the drug usage.
DOST through the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD) will grant funds for the conduct of data collection, blood sampling and processing, DNA extraction and sequencing, and statistical analysis which are vital to the project's success.
The project will be headed by Dr. Maria Theresa Bad-ang, Chairperson of the Renal Transplant Section of Nephrology of SPMC and Chairperson of the Organ Procurement Organization (OPO) for Zone 4A of the Department of Health.
The results of this project will serve as a baseline for future studies that would help patients prepare for the tedious process of healing after kidney transplant. The study will also determine the clinical outcome through a blood test that checks how well the patient's kidneys are working and the amount of medical expenses spent by kidney transplant recipients in Mindanao based on their metabolic rates.
The project will be governed under the guidelines of the DOST Grants-In-Aid program. This is part of DOST’s program which aims to harness the country's scientific and technological capabilities by providing financial grants to S&T programs/projects to spur sustainable economic growth for the country.
Source: Sunstar Davao
