UH professor of pharmacology Tahir Hussain has received $1.6M from the National Institutes of Health to examine a kidney cell that could prevent damage from inflammation caused by obesity. The targeted cells express a protein called the angiotensin type 2 receptor (AT2R), which recently has been indicated to have anti-inflammatory and reno protective actions. Hussain says, if activated, the AT2R will protect against chronic and acute kidney injury.
He will study the impact of inflammation in kidneys with activated AT2R as well as kidneys with no AT2R.
“What I’m proposing in this grant is that certain cells in the kidney can protect the kidney itself,” said Hussain.