PICKED · PersonalIzed medicine in Chronic KidnEy Disease

In 2017, on a world scale the total number of individuals with chronic kidney disease, acute kidney injury, and those on renal replacement therapy exceeded 850 million, a truly concerning figure that is twice the estimated number of people with diabetes worldwide and >20 times higher than the number of individuals affected by AIDS/HIV worldwide. The socioeconomic impact of kidney disease is huge and is anticipated to even further grow in the coming years. Awareness of the magnitude and the risks of this condition have remained low at the population level. Therefore, kidney disease has been, until recently, largely overlooked by health authorities and governments in most countries with as the result accumulation of major unmet needs in personalized medicine in kidney disease. The aim of PICKED (PersonalIzed medicine in Chronic KidnEy Disease) is to equip a generation of 10 doctoral candidates (DC) with interdisciplinary skills for the development of pathways to implement personalized medicine in chronic kidney disease and their complications on the level of its detection, progression and treatment. We anticipate that these DCs will significantly contribute to the increasing possibilities to stratify patients with kidney disease and the development of successful intervention procedures with potential to substantially impact the lives of over 10% of the European population. PICKED will realize this aim by coordinating the efforts of 10 beneficiaries and 8 associated partners across 7 European countries and 3 sectors, with lead supervisors covering a large range of disciplines ranging from biomarker-research to research into the legal, ethical and quality of life aspects for the implementation of personalized medicine in kidney disease.