University Daily Kansan
Thursday, June 17, 1976
Discovery:
By MARION ABARE Staff Writer
Although the recent discovery of a lethal kidney disease in white mice was accidental, a Kansas University Medical Center researcher who made the finding opened the door to active research for ways to help human victims of the disease.
Alvar A. Werder, director of leukemia research laboratories and chairman of the department of microbiology, discovered that the polycystic renal disease (PCRD) was infecting laboratory mice used in his leukemia study.
PCRD usually appears in human beings while they are in their 30s, Werder said.
WITHOUT TREATMENT, a person with PCRD may live from 10 to 30 years after diagnosis. He said dialysis and transplantation were used to treat the disease, which occurs in five to 10 per cent of all kidney ailments.
Although the disease in mice was described in 1940, Werder said, his findings will help other researchers to see whether they have missed observing a PCGRD strain.
In 1962, Werder and his research associate, Anne Neilson, began a germ-free colony of white mice to produce an incidence of leukemia virus.
Nelsen observed that kidney disease in the mice was hampering leukemia study, Werder said. About two years ago they found that the mice were dying of PCRD. In one study, 70 per cent of 1,627 mice died of PCRD.
ALTHOUGH LEUKEMIA and PCRD
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Kidney disease in mice aids Med Center research
appear unrelated, Werder said, another study in which 143 mice were inoculated with leukemia cells showed that 50 per cent got leukemia and 41 per cent got PCRD. Two per cent developed both diseases, which Werder said was rare for animals.
PCRD is thought to be hereditary in person. Werder said the PCRD strain had a variable penetrant, which meant that 40 to 50 percent of members would be likely to contract the disease.
Werder and Neilsen will continue research on PCRD with Lynn Wolfe, mammalian geneticist in the KU department of zoology.
Work is done with mammals, which are milk-producing females, because there is evidence that something passed in their milk may carry antibodies of the virus. Werder said. Experiments will be done in animal facilities at the Med Center.
"WERE GOING to cross-breed our mice with some of Wolf's in an attempt to determine if PIDR is hereditary, and if so, would it be hereditary system in humans," Werder said.
Werder's discovery of PCRD in mice
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immune complex disease, then with the results of research the severity of the disease might be lessened.
become more significant for him when he discovered his wife had the disease. He said about 60 per cent of his wife's family has had PCRD. However, their two children, who are in their 20s, have no symptoms of the disease, he said.
If the disease is hereditary, nothing can be done to ston it. Werder said. But if it's an
Werder stressed the "iffs" of his research but said he hoped it would eventually help people who are susceptible to or suffering from PCRD.
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