IT'S ALIVE! fully Functioning Kidney's Grown in A Lab Tested Successfully...

Japanese researchers have successfully grown a pair of kidneys in a laboratory. The kidneys have been transplanted into an animal and they have been verified as functioning correctly. This is the first step to growing such organs and transplanting them into a person.

The animals that have been tried are rats and pigs. The first wave was with rats; what is more interesting is the effect with a more complex animal like a pig. The success shown here bring the possibility of a human kidney transplant, using laboratory engineered kidneys, a step closer.

The newly grown kidneys were created from stem cells, using rats as the incubators for the

growing embryonic tissue. The kidneys are grown complete with a drainage tube and bladder for the collection of urine.

Dr Takashi Yokoo and colleagues at the Jikei University School of Medicine in Tokyo used a stem cell method, but instead of just growing a kidney for the host animal, they set about growing a drainage tube too, along with a bladder to collect and store the urine.

They used rats as the incubators for the growing embryonic tissue.  When they connected up the new kidney and its plumbing to the animal's existing bladder, the system worked.  Urine passed from the transplanted kidney into the transplanted bladder and then into the rat bladder. And the transplant was still working well when they checked again eight weeks later.

They then repeated the procedure on a much larger mammal - a pig - and achieved the same results.

Prof Chris Mason, an expert in stem cells and regenerative medicine at University College London, said: "This is an interesting step forward. The science looks strong and they have good data in animals.  But that's not to say this will work in humans. We are still years off that. It's very much mechanistic. It moves us closer to understanding how the plumbing might work.  At least with kidneys, we can dialysis patients for a while so there would be time to grow kidneys if that becomes possible."

Other scientists have looked at rejuvenating old organs that would not normally be suitable for transplanting. Prof Harald Ott and colleagues have been testing out a method that washes away the tissue from dead organs to leave a scaffold that can be repopulated with healthy new cells.

They have built kidneys, hearts and lungs in this way.

Prof Ott says using a scaffold is a good short cut, rather than having to grow whole structures from scratch.

Although the results are very successful, human trials remain a number of years away. A multitude of safety checks are required before a human goes under surgery for one of the kidneys.

The research was led by Dr Takashi Yokoo of the Jikei University School of Medicine in Tokyo. The research has been published in the journal PNAS. The research paper is titled “Urine excretion strategy for stem cell-generated embryonic kidneys.”

Source:

• http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34312125

• http://www.thelatestnews.com/lab-grown-kidneys-are-a-success/

• http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/09/15/1507803112.abstract?sid=cc41d0ce-eb36-4343-b219-76092f446e19

So “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;”

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