Pediatric nephrologist Olga Charnaya is advancing understanding of dialysis cyclers — portable machines used at home to manage kidney failure. But she isn’t doing it alone. She recently presented and published research with the help of her elementary school-aged son, Sam.

During clinical meetings at Johns Hopkins, Charnaya often heard questions about how dialysis cyclers pull fluid when multiple bags are connected at once. Understanding whether the cycler draws fluid all at once or one bag at a time is important for knowing how well waste and fluid are being removed from the body. For children using automated peritoneal dialysis, precise fluid management is especially critical.

Charnaya brought the question to Sam. Without prompting, he came up with his own idea on how to conduct an experiment. Together, the mother-son duo tested the cycler using three bags filled with different colored liquid and found that the machine pulls from all bags at once.

Sam shared their findings during his elementary school science fair, where he won second place. The mother/son duo also presented their research at the Annual Dialysis Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Their study was later published in Journal of the International Pediatric Nephrology Association.