Glomerular Diseases: Entering a New Era

Diseases of the glomerulus have always held a special place of interest for nephrologists. At first glance the glomerulus is a simplefiltering structure connected to a couple of pipes, like so many manmade fluid-filtering systems. Of course, on closer inspection, advancement in science has revealed much of the beauty and com-plexity of this structure. In 1697, proteinuria was first mentioned in a clinical con-text (1). Initial studies on albuminuria were performed in 1814 by Jack Blackall (1). One hundred thirty years after proteinuria was first reported, Richard Bright established its relation to renal disease; John Bostock then showed how loss of protein through the urine could lead to a decrease in the amount of protein in the blood (2). Each individual glomerulus works with its million