PKD-InVent (PKD In Vitro Center) is dedicated to the development of polycystic kidney disease (PKD) organoids and related in-a-dish technologies. The Center, founded in 2025 with a grant from the National Institutes of Health, builds upon our research-enabling discovery demonstrating that human mini-kidney structures grown in a petri dish can exhibit symptoms of polycystic kidney disease (‘PKD in a dish’).
Why it matters: Mini-kidney technology remains difficult for many investigators to access, and mini-kidney PKD also differs in certain respects from PKD in a living person. Our Center’s members, who are world leaders in this area, seek to solve these challenges. This will greatly enable the community to use the technology to make research breakthroughs in our understanding of how PKD actually works and how it might be treated in a curative fashion.
PKD-InVent consists of three Cores: an Administrative Core, an Organoid Products and Services Core, and a Resource Development Core, with Dr. Freedman serving as the overall Director of the Center. It is one of six PKD Centers within the PKD Research Resource Consortium, along with the consortium’s Central Coordinating Site. We are honored to be a part of this prestigious program, which endeavors to create tools that advance PKD research and share them broadly with the research community.
Summer Program for Students:
Applications are now open for our summer program, which will take place on June 23-24, 2026 at the University of Washington in Seattle. The PKD-InVent Summer Student Enrichment Program will support up to fifteen trainees (undergraduate, graduate, or postdoctoral) to attend a two-day annual meeting. This will include lectures, workshops, and hands-on experiences within our Center to inform trainees about the latest advances in PKD in vitro models and how to use them.
Application deadline: May 1, 2026. Applications after May 1 will not be accepted.
Travel support: ALL EXPENSES PAID, i.e. meeting registration and meals during the meeting (all accepted applicants), lodging and airfare (for out of towners)
Eligibility: Must be 18 or older, located within the United States, currently enrolled in an educational program focusing on biology/biomedicine (postdocs included), and have not participated in this meeting previously.
To apply, please send the following information to pkdinvent at gmail dot com.
- CV or resume
- Short responses (200 words or less) about each of the following topics:
- How you became interested in PKD
- What you hope to gain from the program
- Your background in biology and how it might connect to PKD research
