Building replacement kidneys in lab comes closer to reality

A new research has revealed the development of the most successful method till date to build replacement kidneys.

Senior author Anthony Atala from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center said that until now, lab-built kidneys had been rodent-sized and had functioned for only one or two hours after transplantation because blood clots developed.

Atala added that in their proof-of-concept study, the vessels in a human-sized pig kidney remained open during a four-hour testing period and so they were now conducting a longer-term study to determine how long flow could be maintained.

The current research was part of a long-term project to use pig kidneys to make support structures known as "scaffolds" that could potentially be used to build replacement kidneys for human patients with end-stage renal disease.

First, the researchers evaluated four different methods of introducing new cells into the main vessels of the kidney scaffold, then they coated the scaffold's vessels with an antibody designed to make them "stickier" and to bind endothelial cells.

Lead author Kap Ko said that their cell seeding method, combined with the antibody, improved the attachment of cells to the vessel wall and prevented the cells from being detached when blood flow was initiated.

Ko added that the results were a promising indicator that it was possible to produce a fully functional vascular system that could deliver nutrients and oxygen to engineered kidneys, as well as other engineered organs.

The study is published in journal Technology.