A rat kidney scaffold, seeded with human endothelial and rat kidney cells, in an organ bioreactor.. OTT LAB, CENTER FOR REGENERATIVE MEDICINE, MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITALResearchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston have made functioning rat kidneys in the lab and transplanted them into the rodents, where the bioengineered organs filtered blood and produced urine, according a report out this week (April 14) in Nature Medicine. The work is an important step toward the long-term goal of creating replacement kidneys for humans, who currently have to wait for donor kidneys.
“The real value of this study is that it’s the kidney [rather than the heart or other organs] and it’s a proof of concept, and the clinical need is so great,” Stephen Badylak of the University of Pittsburgh told The New York Times.
A team led by organ-regeneration specialist Harald Ott made the replacement kidneys by first stripping donor kidneys of their cells to leave behind the scaffold connective tissues and blood vessels. The team then introduced kidney and blood vessel cells from newborn rats into the scaffold and cultured the organ. The resulting kidneys produced urine in vitro and when transplanted into living rats, though not as efficiently as normal kidneys.
The method, pioneered by Ott and colleagues in 2008, has previously been used ...
