R.I. Hospital researcher to receive $19.6M grant

A kidney specialist at Rhode Island Hospital has been awarded a $19.6 million federal grant to fund another five years of research into ways to reduce heart attack and stroke in kidney transplant patients.
Dr. Andrew G. Bostom, who is also an associate professor of medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, has been leading the Folic Acid for Vascular Outcome Reduction in Transplantation (FAVORIT) trial at the hospital since 2002.
Rhode Island Hospital is one of 20 sites in the United States and Canada participating in this double-blind, randomized controlled clinical trial, designed to evaluate whether lowering levels of an amino acid known as homocysteine by using vitamin supplements such as folic acid can reduce cardiovascular disease in kidney transplant recipients.
Patients with chronic kidney disease, including those who have received kidney transplants, are at high risk for cardiovascular disease because they have elevated total homocysteine levels. Folic acid and other B vitamins help break homocysteine down.
Although the trial focuses on kidney transplant recipients, its outcome could have implications for the treatment of a much larger population with chronic kidney disease, Bostom said in a statement. •