Are We Close to Building an Artificial Kidney?

SadaNews - Researchers have made significant progress in efforts to build artificial kidneys for mice and humans, combining components of kidney filtration and urine concentration to create structures that are the most mature and complex kidney structures ever developed in the lab.

The scientists described in their study a method for generating kidney structures, or organoids, that are more mature and complex than ever before, cultivated in the lab.

The study was conducted by a research team led by the University of Southern California in the United States and published in the journal Cell Stem Cell on September 17th, as reported by the website EurekAlert.

Said co-researcher Chungui Li, an associate professor of medicine and stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California: "This is a revolutionary tool for creating more accurate models for studying kidney diseases, which affect one in every seven adults."

Kidney-like Functions

Li added that it represents an important achievement "towards our long-term goal of building a functional artificial kidney for over 100,000 patients in the United States awaiting a transplant, the only treatment for end-stage kidney disease."

Li's lab previously constructed organoids composed of nephrons, which are the filtering units in the kidney, and they also produced organoids resembling collecting ducts in the kidney, which concentrate urine.

The scientists first optimized the growth conditions for collecting cells from mice and humans in the lab, then they implanted the collecting cells from mice and humans into living mice, where they matured further, expanded in size, and developed connective tissues and blood vessels.

Both the collecting cells from mice and humans demonstrated kidney-like functions, such as filtering blood, absorbing proteins like albumin, the ability to secrete kidney hormones, and early signs of urine production.

Source: EurekAlert