Improving kidney disease care through standardized immune blood tests
Kidney diseases caused by an overactive immune system are rare but serious and can be life-threatening if not diagnosed and treated in time. The COMPASS project brings together two academic medical centers and a Dutch biotechnology company in a new public-private partnership to develop reliable and standardized blood tests that help doctors diagnose these kidney diseases earlier and monitor treatment more effectively.
Worldwide, thousands of patients live with immune-driven kidney diseases that often progress rapidly and can lead to kidney failure, dialysis, or transplantation. These conditions place a high burden on patients and healthcare systems, with long-term treatment costs running into tens of thousands of euros per patient per year. Although new medicines that target the immune system are becoming available, doctors currently lack reliable tests to determine which patients will benefit most and how well treatments are working. Existing tests vary widely between hospitals, leading to delayed diagnoses and less effective care. There is an urgent need for improved and standardized tests to ensure accurate, consistent, and accessible diagnosis. COMPASS addresses this challenge by developing a new generation of standardized blood tests that measure key immune system markers involved in kidney disease. The project combines fundamental research, clinical expertise, and industrial know-how to design tests that are robust, easy to use, and suitable for routine hospital practice. A key innovation is the use of carefully engineered reference materials or calibrators, which replace unstable patient samples and ensure that test results are comparable across laboratories.
The project will deliver validated laboratory tests and a rapid point-of-care test that supports immediate care decisions at the patients’ bedside. Together, these tools will support earlier diagnosis, better treatment monitoring, and more efficient use of expensive medicines, ultimately improving patient outcomes and reducing healthcare costs.
