Indian American professor gets USD 1.6M grant to protect kidneys from obesity

Tahir Hussain, an Indian American professor of Pharmacology at the University of Houston, has received a grant of USD 1.6 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) 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.

If activated, the AT2R will protect against chronic and acute kidney injury, Hussain said.

Hussain, originally from India and an alumnus of the Aligarh Muslim University, will study the impact of inflammation in kidneys with active AT2R as well as those with no AT2R.

"What I'm proposing in this grant is that certain cells in the kidney can protect the kidney itself," he said.

The expression of AT2R in the body is inherently low and hence, "weak", Hussain said, adding that "but because we know it has anti-inflammatory activity, we want to pump it up."