# Transcriptomic Diagnosis and Staging of Sepsis-Associated Acute Kidney Injury

> **NIH NIH K08** · INDIANA UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS · 2024 · $157,953

## Abstract

Acute kidney injury is diagnosed in over 50% of patients with sepsis. Sepsis-associated AKI
(sAKI) contributes to high mortality, the development of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-
stage renal disease (ESRD). Despite decades of investigation into the pathophysiology and
treatment of sepsis and associated kidney injury, we remain without diagnostic tools to stratify
human AKI etiology and stage, which we seek to address in this proposal. The overall goal of
our project is to test the hypothesis that murine blood transcriptomics can be used to diagnose
and stage human sAKI. We will first identify murine blood-based biomarkers(miRNA and
mRNA) reflective of sAKI tissue injury. We will then use the murine biomarkers to stratify human
AKI according to sAKI diagnosis and molecular stage. The immediate outcome of this work will
be the development of a liquid biopsy to diagnose and stage human sAKI. Indiana University
houses the Biobank Cohort of Indiana and is an established tissue interrogation site for the
Kidney Precision Medicine Project (KPMP), thus, my interdisciplinary mentoring team and I are
well-positioned to undertake this highly translatable work. The current proposal will develop a
number of skills required to be a successful, independent translational researcher.
While my long-term goal is treatment of sAKI, the implementation of this necessitates solid basic
science and computational skill sets. This will allow for future work focused on the treatment of
sAKI. If these studies show efficacy in the diagnosis and staging of human AKI, these strategies
may be rapidly translated into the clinical setting.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10865167
- **Project number:** 1K08DK139369-01
- **Recipient organization:** INDIANA UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS
- **Principal Investigator:** Danielle Janosevic
- **Activity code:** K08 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $157,953
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-04-15 → 2028-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10865167

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10865167, Transcriptomic Diagnosis and Staging of Sepsis-Associated Acute Kidney Injury (1K08DK139369-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10865167. Licensed CC0.

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