Paraish Misra

A Kidney Living Research Profile

p Paraish Misra

Where are you from? Where did you study?

I was born in Montreal, and I completed my medical school and residency in Internal Medicine at McGill university. I then came to Toronto to pursue my specialization in Nephrology.

How did you become interested in nephrology?

In my early university days, I was fascinated by how elegantly the healthy kidney could regulate the salts and acids in the blood. During my residency in Internal Medicine, I was exposed to the breadth of diseases caused by the dysfunctional kidney. I realized how kidney disease often extended into other parts of patients’ bodies and lives, and that caring for patients with kidney disease required a consideration of multiple different aspects of their health. I liked how in Nephrology, I could specialize in the kidney without leaving the rest of medicine behind.

What are you currently researching?

Currently, I am studying how we can use stem cells to build organs for transplantation. Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney disease in Canada, and pancreas transplantation is an effective treatment for diabetes, but there are not enough pancreases available for all patients who could benefit from them. I am working on a way to build a pancreas from stem cells to treat diabetes. I am using special stem cells from which proteins called “HLA” have been removed. These HLA proteins are often what cause transplanted organs to be rejected and fail, requiring that patients take anti-rejection medications, which have many side effects. I hope that organs I build with these HLA-deficient stem cells will survive and function inside patients without requiring the use of anti-rejection medications. This will allow more patients to access this therapy with fewer side effects, and hopefully lead to better health and quality of life for patients with diabetes.

How will your research impact the treatment of kidney patients? What is the long term goal?

Since diabetes is a leading cause of kidney disease in Canada, this type of therapy will impact many Canadians that have chronic kidney

disease. I hope that providing patients with this new treatment will help prevent or control kidney disease caused by diabetes. In future, we may also be able to use these special stem cells to build kidneys that do not get rejected after being transplanted into patients with kidney disease, potentially providing a safer alternative to kidney transplantation.

What does the grant support from The Kidney Foundation mean to you?

The type of research I perform requires training that Nephrologists do not typically receive, which was very daunting at first. The Kidney Foundation’s grant gave me the support to receive the training I needed to pursue this unconventional career path. I am very fortunate to be able to work towards developing novel treatments for patients with diabetes and kidney disease, and this would not be possible without The Kidney Foundation.

What word would you use to describe the kidney research community in Canada? Why?

The word would undoubtedly be “unified.” Though I am still in the early phase of my research career, I have been fortunate to witness how closely connected Canadian kidney researchers are, which allows them to build off each other’s strengths and achieve remarkable things. I believe that efforts from The Kidney Foundation such as the KRESCENT research training program are essential to maintaining this synergy, making Canada a unique place to perform research on kidney disease. 

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