'Lab-grown' rat kidney successfully transplanted

Conclusion This early stage research has developed a new way of growing a bioengineered rat kidney in the laboratory that can produce urine when implanted into a living rat. The researchers have also shown that at least the first stage of this process (removing the cells from a donor kidney) can be achieved with a human kidney. Due to limited availability of donor kidneys for people with kidney disease, researchers and doctors would like to be able to grow human kidneys in the laboratory. This research could be an early step towards developing a potential method for ‘growing’ kidneys in the laboratory that could be used in humans. However, as the authors themselves acknowledge, many hurdles remain. For example, although the bioengineered rat kidneys did filter blood and produce urine, there were signs that these new kidneys were not functioning exactly as a normal adult rat kidney would. This suggested that the kidneys might need longer to mature in the laboratory before transplant, or to be grown in different conditions. If this research is to be extended to humans, the researchers will need to determine an appropriate source of the right kind of human cells and kidney scaffolds for developing human bioengineered kidneys. The current study successfully produced human and pig kidney scaffolds, however, as with transplantable functioning donor kidneys, human kidneys suitable for use as scaffolds may not be easy to obtain. One of the researchers has been reported in the...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medical practice Source Type: news