Why current research is focused on Black and African American communities, who qualifies, and how enrollment actually works.
These studies are recruiting through partner research networks. We may be paid a referral fee if you complete their screening form — this never changes what you pay (nothing) or the compensation the study offers you.
This research platform is enrolling Black and African American adults in eligible areas who have been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. Compensation may be available. The study team confirms eligibility before enrollment.
Screening is free and takes a few minutes. Eligibility and any compensation are confirmed by the study team, not by this site.
Chronic kidney disease affects roughly one in seven US adults, most of whom will never need dialysis — but the burden is not evenly spread. Black Americans develop kidney failure at around three times the rate of white Americans, and for years were simultaneously under-represented in the very trials testing new kidney treatments. Current research is deliberately working to close that gap.
A research platform is currently enrolling Black and African American adults diagnosed with chronic kidney disease who are interested in taking part in medical research, including access to investigational treatment options for their condition. This page explains who qualifies, why the enrollment is focused this way, and what the process looks like step by step.
Enrollment is open to Black and African American adults with a diagnosed chronic kidney disease. Diagnosed is the operative word: CKD is staged from lab work — eGFR and urine albumin — and the matching process will ask what your doctor has told you, not what you suspect. If kidney disease runs in your family but you have never been tested, the first step is a basic kidney panel from your doctor, which is quick and routine.
Beyond the headline criteria, individual studies on the platform differ in which CKD stages they enroll, which underlying causes they focus on (diabetes and high blood pressure being the two big ones), and what medications are allowed. Those details are matched after you register rather than asked up front — which is the point of a platform model: one profile, checked against many protocols, instead of one form per study.
Not being matched immediately is normal and changes nothing about your record — new studies open enrollment continuously, and a profile that does not fit anything today can match next month.
Two reasons, and both are worth understanding before you decide how you feel about it.
The first is biological. Variants of a gene called APOL1, carried almost exclusively by people of West and Central African ancestry, substantially raise the risk of certain kidney diseases and are one of the main reasons kidney failure rates run so much higher in Black communities. Several investigational treatments now in trials are aimed directly at APOL1-mediated kidney disease — research that is only possible with participants from the communities that carry the variants.
The second is representation. Treatments are approved based on how they perform in trial populations, and when those populations skew heavily white, there is genuinely less evidence about how well the results transfer to everyone else. Regulators and sponsors have spent the past decade pushing to fix this, and focused enrollment like this one is what that push looks like in practice.
None of that history obliges anyone to take part. It does mean that participation carries weight beyond the individual — and that the informed-consent protections that govern every registered study today (IRB oversight, written consent, the unconditional right to withdraw) exist in part because earlier generations were failed by research done without them.
This enrollment runs through a matching platform rather than a single study site. The sequence:
From the referral onward it works like any other trial: the site confirms eligibility from your records and labs, you receive the informed consent document laying out procedures, visit schedule, risks and terms, and nothing starts until you have signed it. Compensation may be available depending on the study you are matched to; the specifics are set by each study's protocol and disclosed in writing before you enroll, never after.
Registering costs nothing, screening costs nothing, and no legitimate study ever asks you to pay to participate. Every registered trial carries an NCT identifier you can look up yourself on ClinicalTrials.gov, the NIH registry.
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Get trial alertsChronic kidney disease is staged 1 through 5 based on eGFR — an estimate of how much blood your kidneys filter per minute — with stage 5 being kidney failure. Most people with CKD sit in stages 1 to 3, often for years, and much of the current research targets exactly that window: the stages where protecting remaining kidney function is still the goal.
That has two practical consequences. First, earlier-stage CKD is not too early for research — people often assume trials are a last resort for dialysis patients, when the opposite is closer to the truth. Second, whether someone already on dialysis can take part depends entirely on the individual protocol; some studies enroll dialysis patients specifically, many target the pre-dialysis stages.
Whatever gets matched, the standing rule applies: never change or stop your current treatment to fit a study. Blood pressure medication, SGLT2 inhibitors, diabetes management — all of it stays as prescribed unless the study physician, in coordination with your own doctor, decides otherwise after enrollment.
It helps but is not required to start. The matching process asks what your doctor has told you, and the research site confirms the actual stage from your lab work during screening. If you have a recent eGFR number, have it to hand — it speeds up matching considerably.
It depends on the study. Some protocols enroll dialysis patients specifically; many others target earlier stages where preserving kidney function is the goal. Registering establishes your profile either way, and the matching determines which currently enrolling studies fit your situation.
Because the research it feeds is focused there — partly on APOL1-mediated kidney disease, which almost exclusively affects people of African ancestry, and partly to correct the long-standing under-representation of Black participants in kidney trials. Studies for chronic kidney disease in the general population exist separately and recruit through their own channels.
Registering and screening are free, and no legitimate study ever asks you to pay to take part. Compensation may be available depending on the study you are matched to — the exact terms are set by each protocol and disclosed in the written consent document before you enroll.
This study runs from a limited number of sites; these are the metros within reach
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