ISN Nexus 2016 Symposia: Translational Immunology in Kidney Disease—The Berlin Roadmap

To date, the treatment of immune-mediated kidney diseases has only marginally benefited from highly specific biological drugs that have demonstrated remarkable effects in many other diseases. What accounts for this disparity? In April 2016, the International Society of Nephrology held a Nexus meeting on Translational Immunology in Nephrology in Berlin, Germany, to identify and discuss hurdles that block the translational flow of target identification, and preclinical and clinical target validation in the domain of immune-mediated kidney disease. A broad panel of experts including basic scientists, translational researchers, clinical trialists, pharmaceutical industry drug developers, and representatives of the American and European regulatory authorities made recommendations on how to overcome such hurdles at all levels of the translational research process. The results of these discussions are presented here, which may serve as a roadmap for how to optimize the process of developing more innovative and effective drugs for patients with immune-mediated kidney diseases.