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Dorin-Bogdan Borza, Ph.D.
CureGN/NEPTUNE Grant Recipient
Dr. Dorin-Bogdan Borza is an Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. After completing his undergraduate education at the University of Bucharest in Romania, he earned a PhD in Biochemistry from University of Missouri--Kansas City. Starting with his postdoctoral training, Dr. Borza's research over the past 25 years has focused on better understanding the etiology and pathogenesis of autoimmune glomerulonephritis. A major goal of his research is solving the conundrum of membranous nephropathy, an autoimmune kidney disease in which glomerular injury and proteinuria are driven by complement activation, even though the autoantibodies involved are predominantly IgG4 (the only IgG subclass that cannot activate the classical pathway of complement). Over the past several years, Dr. Borza has established productive collaborations to develop novel serologic immunoassays for more recently discovered antigens in membranous nephropathy.
Nashville, Tennessee
Meharry Medical College
Resumen Laico del Proyecto:
Novel immunoassays for serologic profiling of membranous nephropathy and monitoring disease activity
Membranous nephropathy (MN) is an immune-mediated kidney disease in which patients develop an abnormal, massive loss of blood proteins in urine (proteinuria). The disease occurs when the immune system abnormally produces autoantibodies that mistakenly attack body’s own proteins (antigens) in the kidneys. Upon binding to target antigen, the autoantibodies form immune complexes that lodge within the kidney sieve that filters blood to produce urine, causing damage. After the initial identification of PLA2R as the most common antigen targeted in two-thirds of patients with MN, recent technical advances resulted in the discovery of about a dozen additional new antigens. Because different kinds of MN associated with different antigens have distinctive clinical associations, a newly introduced antigen-based classification of MN allows for a “precision medicine” approach, which helps to identify the specific underlying cause, enabling tailored and more effective treatment strategies. However, the antigen-based classification of MN currently requires an invasive kidney biopsy, because clinical tests for detecting autoantibodies in patients’ sera are only available for PLA2R (as well as THSD7A, the second antigen identified). This project will leverage the unique resources provided by the NEPTUNE and CureGN biorepositories to develop and validate novel serologic tests for autoantibodies targeting other recently discovered MN antigens. We expect that serology-based antigen classification of MN will reduce the need for an invasive kidney biopsy. In addition, monitoring the serum levels of autoantibodies and how they change over the course of disease can be used to monitor disease activity, response to treatment, and provide advanced warning of disease recurrence.
