cientists make 'lab-grown' kidney
A kidney that was grown in a laboratory has been successfully transplanted into a rat, marking a step forward in helping patients suffering from kidney failure.
Doctors in a kidney transplant operation Photo: Getty Images
3:08AM BST 15 Apr 2013
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Scientists said the prototype proves that a
"bio-kidney" can work, emulating breakthroughs elsewhere to build
replacement structures for livers, hearts and lungs.
Described
in the journal Nature Medicine, the work entailed taking a rat kidney
and stripping out its old 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.
However, it was not as effective as a natural kidney.
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 said.
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 crimped 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.
Edited by Bonnie Malkin
However, it was not as effective as a natural kidney.
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 said.
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 crimped 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.
Edited by Bonnie Malkin
