Janine Nel
Project: Assessing female representation in early kidney research over a ten-year period
“It was eye-opening, and honestly frustrating, to realize how many important questions about women's health remain unanswered because they have historically been overlooked in research. This is not simply a gap in knowledge; sex differences influence disease risk and treatment response, meaning research that fails to consider biological sex can limit the evidence that guides clinical care. This motivated me to contribute to more inclusive research by examining whether the same problem exists in kidney research, a field that affects nearly every aspect of health.”
Summary: Kidney disease affects nearly one billion people worldwide and is a major cause of illness and health-care use, making the development of better treatments a pressing need. Before new treatments are tested in people, they are studied in laboratories using cells and animals. These early studies, called preclinical research, play a major role in deciding which therapies are developed, how drugs are tested, what doses are used, and which patients are included in trials. Across many areas of health research, these early studies have relied heavily on male cells and animals, while female representation has been lacking. This imbalance can hide important biological differences between sexes and may limit how well findings apply to everyone. In kidney disease, this concern is especially important, as females experience different disease patterns and responses to medications. However, we still don't know whether the early research that guides treatment development captures these differences or overlooks them by relying on male models.
This project will examine how biological sex is included and reported in preclinical kidney studies published in leading nephrology journals over the past ten years. We will assess how often female and male models are used, whether studies analyze results separately by sex, and how researchers describe sex in their methods and discussions. Where relevant, we will assess whether authors explain why only one sex was studied and whether they discuss how this might affect how widely their results apply.
This project will provide a clear representation of who is being studied in early kidney research and how sex is considered in study design and reporting. By tracking changes over the past decade, we will show whether representation of females is improving, unchanged or declining. These findings can help guide better research standards and funding decisions, so that future kidney treatments are safer, more reliable and effective for everyone.
Janine Nel was supervised by Dr. Sofia Ahmed in the University of Alberta Department of Medicine and her WCHRI summer studentship was funded by the Alberta Women’s Health Foundation. She is a second-year medical student and recently received a Kidney STARS award from the American Society of Nephrology.
Read more about WCHRI’s training awards for students at all levels and generous grants for researchers. See the rest of the 2026 summer studentship recipients here.
