Jean Winterbottom, a senior clinical research nurse at the MRI and at the Manchester Institute of Nephrology & Transplantation (MINT) laboratories has been appointed to a senior role to lead on and co-ordinate renal research across the UK.
Jean is currently the co-ordinator for a multicentre study, led by Professor Paul Brenchley, Director of Renal Research Labs and Trustee of Kidneys for Life, which seeks to understand the autoimmune mechanism in membranous nephropathy, a rare kidney disease that affects 12 per million of the population.
Jean and her team’s hard work has resulted in them significantly exceeding the targets of the study by signing up 34 transplant centres and recruiting around 500 patients to get involved.
Through the success of this research, the team has now developed the largest database in the UK of information for patients with membranous nephropathy (MN) which has led to Jean’s new national role. Future research that Jean is particularly keen to develop is the impact of occupational, domestic and environment risk of patients with MN.