I am focused on investigating disease mechanisms and therapies for chronic kidney disease, specifically glomerular disease. The glomerulus is a bundle of blood vessels in the kidney where blood ultrafiltration occurs. Blood ultrafiltration maintains the body's internal environment, and when this fails, waste products build up due to the body's inability to clear them. Podocytes are one of the cells responsible for the filtration of the blood. These are specialised cells with a unique shape that wrap around the glomerular capillaries forming the filtration barrier. Genetic conditions can cause these cells to lose their unique shape, and when this occurs, important molecules that the body needs can escape into the urine, while waste products build up. My research combines a mixture of cellular and animal models of podocyte disease, and focuses on investigating and developing gene therapies that correct podocyte mutations, with the long term aim that these therapies can be used to treat patients with chronic kidney disease, alleviating the strain on their lives and on the NHS.