The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation has announced grants totaling more than $7 million to four institutions to study the genetic components of diabetic kidney disease.

The JDRF Genetics of Diabetic Nephropathy Collaborative Research Initiative will support efforts at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the Joslin Diabetes Center, the University of Toronto, and the University of Virginia, which will provide genotyping for all the other sites. Each grant includes multiple collaborators and support from around the globe, including from researchers in the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Finland, and Ireland.

In the largest analysis to date of diabetic kidney disease, or diabetic nephropathy, the initiative aims to identify the specific genes involved in determining the risk of developing the disease. Approximately one-third of people with type 1 diabetes develop diabetic nephropathy, the leading cause of kidney failure. While some patients who have lived with diabetes for a long time do not develop diabetic nephropathy, others who have had diabetes for a shorter time quickly progress to kidney failure. The project's initial activities will include identifying genes that differ between type 1 diabetes patients who have diabetic nephropathy and those who do not; genes that predict how quickly a type 1 diabetes patient may develop end-stage renal disease; and genes that predict rapid progression of decline in renal function.

"JDRF is proud to be spearheading this project, which is helping to fill a huge gap in research into diabetic nephropathy," said Helen Nickerson, JDRF's senior scientific program manager of complications. "Throughout the years, smaller studies have increased our insight into possible genetic factors associated with diabetic nephropathy; but we determined that the most effective way to tackle hurdles in this research would be to pool, compare, and expand knowledge in this area from scientific groups and patient cohorts around the globe."