World-class research and treatment of kidney disease at Monash

Professor Kitching

Vasculitis may not be as well-known as its autoimmune disease cousins lupus and multiple sclerosis (MS), however in a Victorian first, Monash Health has opened a clinic dedicated to improving outcomes for patients with this debilitating, often fatal and little-known inflammatory disease.

Vasculitis is a condition that affects blood vessels as a result of inflammation, and can lead to organ damage, especially the kidney (the condition effectively turns the body’s immune system on itself). Although lacking the profile of other autoimmune diseases, vasculitis in Australia has a similar incidence to MS.

The new Monash Health Vasculitis Clinic, led by nephrologist and physician-scientist Professor Richard Kitching, from the Monash Health Department of Nephrology, and Head of the Centre for Inflammatory Diseases (CID) in the School of Clinical Sciences, is a collaboration between renal (kidney) medicine and rheumatology.

While the CID is already recognised as a world-class centre for vasculitis research, the new patient clinic will enable Professor Kitching and his colleagues to not only focus on excellent patient care but also advance their research through the collection and analysis of patient blood and DNA samples.

Importantly, Professor Kitching is also one of the Chief Investigators in the recently launched collaborative NHMRC funded Centre of Research Excellence, the Centre for Personalised Immunology (CPI)—the first comprehensive centre for personalised immunology in the world.

“Our work in the clinic and our collaboration with CPI will generate invaluable genetic information, improve diagnosis and tailor individual treatments for patients,” said Professor Kitching. 

“Understanding pathophysiological pathways in patients will enable us to develop and use more effective treatments without the significant side-effects of current therapies.”

Side-effects, such as an increased likelihood of developing cancer, infection and infertility are common in patients being treated with current medication.

Without treatment, 85 per cent of patients with vasculitis currently die within five years. Even with treatment, up to 30 per cent of patients die and half of those die from the treatment itself.

“The data we collect as well as our findings will be shared throughout our networks,” said Professor Kitching.

“Monash University, Monash Health, Monash Health Translation Precinct, CPI, researchers, students and patients will all benefit from the collaborative nature of this enterprise.”

“We will use patients’ samples from our clinic to convert individual genome sequences into an understanding of the mechanism of the disease,” added Professor Kitching. “And this will lead to the development of precision therapies for this chronic and yet incurable disease—a perfect example of how we excel in translational research.” 

“Understanding the cellular and biochemical mechanisms to explain changes in the genome will also enable the development of targeted therapies for other immunological diseases such as autoimmunity and immune deficiency.”

Professor Kitching is a nephrologist with an outstanding track record of discovery of the mechanisms of systemic vasculitis and ANCA-associated renal disease. His group is the most published in experimental vasculitis in the past 5 years, with publications in highly influential journals including PNAS USA, Nature Med, J Clin Invest, Blood and N Engl J Med.