Dr. Alan Pao had a patient years ago with recurring, debilitating kidney stones that due to their chemical makeup were essentially unpreventable. He recalled telling the man once that he was sorry, but there were no options that wouldn’t make his condition worse.
“There are some things someone could try,” Pao told the man, thinking of patients he’d seen over the years at the Stanford Kidney Stone Clinic and ideas that had tickled the back of his mind as possible options for treating them. And the man said, well, why shouldn’t Pao be the one to try?
And thus launched Pao’s efforts to find a new drug to treat and prevent some types of kidney stones. His research at Stanford is focused on a particular type of kidney stone, but he hopes his work will help scientists across the field better understand the mechanics and chemistry of kidney stones and how to harness that information to stop them…