Knowledge gained from this critical work on aggressive soft tissue tumors in Bernese Mountain Dogs is being directly translated into similar efforts to improve outcomes of these devastating tumors in people. Working in concert with physicians, scientists, and healthcare teams at Atrium Health/Levine Cancer Center and Atrium Health Wake Forest...
Community COVID19 Study
Infection with SARS-CoV-2 and development of COVID-19 disease is associated with a deleterious effect in renal function and structure. This was expected to potentially alter the molecular composition of urine. Since COVID-19 evolved in 2019, there have been numerous reports of acute kidney injury (AKI) associated with this infection. The...
Lupus Nephritis Study
Acute and chronic kidney disease, leading to end stage kidney disease and renal failure, can occur in 10-30% of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, a serious autoimmune disease. Working with physicians and colleagues at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, we obtained more than 400 single- and serial-collection urine samples from...
Transplantation, Tissue Engineering, Regenerative Medicine
Kidney transplantation is considered to be the preferred treatment for patients with end stage kidney disease (ESRD). However, there is a critical shortage of transplantable organs, created by the ever-increasing prevalence of CKD and ESRD. At the end of 2025, more than 102,000 patients were waiting for a transplant (https://hrsa.unos.org/data/view-data-reports/national-data/#)....
Organ viability sensing
RTI engineers and academic colleagues have been actively engaged for over a decade in development of organ preservation systems and sensors to monitor the quality/viability of organs destined for transplantation. RTI founder Robertson was a key member of a team that perfected a novel cardio emulation organ perfusion system for...
Regeneration/tissue engineering
Another approach to solving the transplantable organ shortage crisis is ‘bioengineering’ of organs – by ‘stripping down’ potentially useful organs and then repopulating them with stem cells. Conceptually (not yet a reality) these newly regenerated kidneys could be ‘manufactured’ with precise matching to recipients and then transplanted. Members of the...
Ex vivo organ engineering
Members of the RTI team also have applied their knowledge of organ preservation/perfusion systems, sensing systems, and Rametrix® organ viability profiling to help develop novel ex vivo methods to improve organ quality and even to ‘treat’ abnormalities (anatomical defects, benign tumors) in isolated, perfused organs, as demonstrated in several peer-reviewed...
Transplantation
Unfortunately, the only way to tell if a kidney transplant is going to work…is to transplant it and wait. Most transplanted kidneys start to work immediately and help sustain transplant patients for 10-20 years. Transplants from deceased donors typically can function adequately for up to a decade (average 8-12 years)...
Dialysis – life-sustaining therapy for patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD)
As of March 31, 2025, there are 7,556 dialysis centers in the U.S., treating over 500,000 patients with hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis. The breakdown of treatment methods shows that about 433,400 patients are treated in-center, 78,400 at home, and a smaller number in skilled nursing environments (https://www.matthews.com/market_insights/dialysis-centers-2025-update). Dialysis therapy sustains...
RTI announces spin-off of divisions focused on human and animal health problems and solutions
Today, RTI President John Robertson announced the spin-off of divisions that will focus separately on human and animal health problems and solutions to these problems. The new human medical division will be called UroLog-X™ LLC and the animal health division will be called VetUroLog-X™ LLC. Both divisions will utilize patented...