PKD in the news - September 2023
The PKD Foundation of Canada's Executive Director, Jeff Robertson, interviewed on daytime Ottawa - September 17, 2023
While travelling this September, our Executive Director, Jeff Robertson, was interviewed by daytime Ottawa host Derek Fage about PKD, the work of the PKD Foundation of Canada, and our September events. Watch the interview here on daytime Ottawa's YouTube Channel.
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Local woman raising awareness about life-threatening disease
Nina Young, the founder of our PKD Foundation of Canada Corner Brook Chapter who now lives in Orillia, was interviewed by Orillia Matters and Orillia Today this month for PKD Awareness Day.
A local woman is working to raise awareness about a life-threatening disease that has deeply impacted her life and family.
Since being diagnosed at age 11, Nina Young has lived with polycystic kidney disease (PKD), a genetic disorder that causes numerous cysts to grow on a patient’s kidneys, ultimately enlarging them and often leading to kidney failure.
Most of her family has had the misfortune of developing PKD, with many passing after bouts with the disease — including her mother, who was only 45 when she died.
“Six out of nine of them have passed away from the disease,” Young told OrilliaMatters. “It ran rampant through my family, and they did the best that they could with the technology they had at that time.”
Read the Orillia Matters article here.
Awareness for life-threatening disease receives City of Orillia support with flag-raising ceremony
A disease she was diagnosed with at the age of 11 ripped through her immediate family and brought early deaths for many people close to her, but Nina Young is hopeful that research funding stemming from increased awareness will lead to a cure.
Young moved from Newfoundland to Orillia after six of her close family members passed away following battles with polycystic kidney disease, including her mother at the age of 45, to be near members of her extended family, including city councillor Janet Lynn-Durnford.
While a national PKD Awareness Day has existed since 2014, the City of Orillia recognized it for the first time locally with a flag-raising ceremony Sept. 4 in front of the Orillia Opera House.
Read the Orillia Today article here.
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Surgeons continue to work on animal-to-human kidney transplants
Doctors have transplanted pig kidneys into bodies donated to research, and one kidney has worked for over a month. With more than 100,000 patients on the waitlist for a transplant in the U.S., it's a crucial step in the quest to one day use animal organs to save human lives. Read the article and watch the accompanying video, here.
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Channeling emotion into art
New York Times bestselling author Abby Jimenez has included a meaningful plot twist – a life-saving kidney transplant – in her latest novel. What was her inspiration? Her own kidney disease diagnosis. Read more about her new book, Yours Truly, here.
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Husband and wife are "one in 22 million" kidney transplant match
When Darren Creed, a PKD patient in Leichester, UK, started looking for a kidney donor, he never anticipated that it would be his wife Donna who would ultimately end up being a match for him. Kidney Care UK estimates that the odds of the couple being a match were one in 22 million. Read more about this special transplant here.
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Pig kidney works in brain-dead man for over a month, a step towards animal-human transplants
Surgeons at NYU Langone Health transplanted a pig’s kidney into a brain-dead man and for over a month it worked normally — a critical step toward an operation the New York team hopes to eventually try in living patients. Read more about this exciting innovation in transplant research, here.