Functioning rat kidneys were produced by a team of researchers at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital. This pioneering effort in bioengineering may help to create kidneys for people who have kidney disease.
The manufactured rat kidneys produced urine in the lab as well as when transplanted into the rats. By stripping donor kidneys of their cells and putting new cells that regenerate tissue into them, scientists were able to construct the kidneys.
The senior author of the paper detailing the research, Dr. Harald C. Ott, said that this new way of creating kidneys has its advantages and the work is still in its early stages.
"The huge benefit would be that it's fully implantable in the shape of a kidney," Ott said.
Decellularization, the process of stripping organs for their cells, was developed by Dr. Ott. This technology was also tested on pig and human kidneys and involves using a detergent to access the network of proteins beneath the living tissue. These proteins are responsible for retaining many components of the kidney, including blood vessel structure.
According to the National Kidney Foundation, in the United States there are currently over 95,567 people waiting for kidney transplants. Creating kidneys using nonhuman sources will help to eliminate the organ shortage. Nearly 5,000 people with end-stage kidney disease died while awaiting kidney transplants.
As reported by the New York Times, Dr. Ott suggested the approach of seeding human cells with decelluralized pig kidneys, since they are available.
If a patient was in need of a new kidney, "in an ideal world, you'd take cells from that patient and create a kidney on demand," Ott said.
