Finally, this maybe a sigh of “relief news” for the people, who suffer from kidney failure and undergo the painful dialysis.
The experiment
In the experiment, the researchers took a rat kidney and took out its old cells with the help of a detergent solution. This process resulted in a collagen shell as a remainder. This empty shell was infused with living cells, mainly kidney cells obtained from new born rats and the human endothelial cells lining the walls of the blood vessels of kidneys.
These cells were then cleverly seeded in the appropriate part of the kidney with the tubular muscle duct, the ureter. The organ was then transplanted into the rats that had their kidney removed.
Without any evidence of clotting or bleeding, the new kidney started producing urine and filtering blood through the ureter. This process started the moment the blood supply was restored to the kidney.
Can the laboratory grown kidney work?
As the experiment is still in the preliminary stages, the prototype did not work as effectively as a natural kidney. Further researches are a must before human trials can be set underway. The researchers still need to fine tune cells to perform the kidney function well enough, they stated.
Finally, it may be a sigh of relief for the people who face the agony of kidney troubles. The scientists from U.S have made a “laboratory grown” kidney that shows how a bio-kidney may work. This may be a turning point for liver, lung and heart replacements.
The researchers had started work on the organ with cells from human and pig kidneys, in testing the first phase of the procedure. But this is at the moment on hold and still has to be taken further.
Harald Ott from the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Regenerative Medicine affirms that their main target was the millions of people who suffer from kidney failure and who have to undergo the pain of dialysis treatment.
"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". This may be the answer to kidney transplant and the rejection of the body for a transplanted organ may be a thing of the past in the near future!
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