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RESEARCHERS IN THE United States said yesterday they had bio-engineered a kidney and transplanted it into rats, marking a step forward in a quest to help patients suffering from kidney failure.
The prototype proves that a “bio-kidney” can work, emulating breakthroughs elsewhere to build replacement structures for livers, hearts and lungs, they said.
Described in the journal Nature Medicine, the work entailed taking a rat kidney and stripping out its living cells using a detergent solution, leaving behind a shell made of collagen.
The next step was to repopulate this empty structure with living cells, comprising human endothelial cells, which line the walls of blood vessels in the kidney, and kidney cells taken from newborn rats.
The trick was then to “seed” these cells in the correct part of the kidney, using a muscle duct called the ureter as a tube.
The team transplanted the organ into living rats from which a kidney had been removed.
The new kidney started filtering blood and producing urine through the ureter as soon as the bloody supply was restored, and there was no evidence of bleeding or clots.
Hope for kidney failure and dialysis sufferers
Further work is needed to fine-tune the cell types to improve organ function, and many hurdles must be overcome before any tests on humans can go ahead, the scientists cautioned.
The researchers stripped cells from pig and human kidneys to test the first phase of the procedure on these organs, but have not taken this further for now.
Harald Ott of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Regenerative Medicine said the goal was to help the millions of people with kidney failure whose lives are cripled by dialysis.
“If this technology can be scaled to human-sized grafts, patients suffering from renal failure who are currently waiting for donor kidneys or who are not transplant candidates could theoretically receive new organs derived from their own cells” to prevent rejection by the immune system, he said.
- © AFP 2013.
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This is great, hope to have success in humans
Next step would hopefully be to create a scaffold without using a donor kidney. Something similar has been done recently in replacing an oesophagus.
So exciting to see what the future holds!!
Science is exciting and well done to scientists involved.
Amen to that Floodzie, this appears on the small amount of information available, to be a really valuable breakthrough, and if the scaffold could be created as you say rather than cannibalised it would be even better. Tremendous new hope for sufferers, a great achievement.
Incredible achievement, I’d say they’re already eyeing up the Irish bio-liver market
That is fantastic. Having known someone who was on dialysis and how tough it is this will give them the inspiration to persevere. Hopefully it will mean less people having to rely on kidney donation and all that that entails for both recipient and donor (living).
You’re very wise Mary… My fear of you has blinded me of this all my life! I take a bow to your wiseness! ;)
Not sure how to take your comment above, Dec. I’ll take it in the spirit it was offered judging by your comment below!
I’m being 100% genuine! I’m surprised you’d think otherwise given the life long fear I’ve had of you! :)
I’m quite sure you’re being 100% geniune, Dec!
Hope you’re well! ;)
Likewise, Dec, likewise!
So does this new kidney have a soul? :P
Grab your hat, this thread is no place for jokers!
One step closer to the creation of the first bio engineered person! :)
Delighted for him. Hope he lives a full and rich life and has learnt to lay off the poison
Didn’t know Enda had kidney trouble…
A marvelous achievement that so many could benefit from!
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