The membrane attack complex drives thrombotic microangiopathy in complement mediated atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome.

Introduction of complement (C) inhibition into clinical practice has revolutionized the treatment of patients with complement-mediated atypical hemolytic syndrome (aHUS). Our C3 mouse model, engineered around a gain of function point mutation in C3, is associated with complement mediated aHUS in man, allowing us to study the clinical disease in a preclinical model. Backcrossing our model onto C7 deficient and C5aR1 deficient mice enabled further determination of the roles of the C5a-C5aR1 axis and C5b-9 (the membrane attack complex) on kidney disease.

Diagnosis and treatment of thrombotic microangiopathy.

Thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA) is characterized by thrombocytopenia, microangiopathic haemolytic anaemia and end organ damage. TMAs have varying underlying pathophysiology and can therefore present with an array of clinical presentations. Renal involvement is common as the kidney is particularly susceptible to the endothelial damage and microvascular occlusion.

A novel segmentation-based algorithm for the quantification of magnified cells.

Cell segmentation and counting is often required in disciplines such as biological research and medical diagnosis. Manual counting, although still employed, suffers from being time consuming and sometimes unreliable. As a result, several automated cell segmentation and counting methods have been developed.