Tokyo: Successful trial of lab-grown kidneys on pigs and rats has paved the way for growing of fully functioning kidneys. A team of Japanese scientists has developed the kidneys which found to be passing urine just like natural ones, when transplanted into pigs and rats. The researchers said that getting the urine out was a problem in earlier developed kidneys which used to swell under pressure. However, by growing extra plumbing for the kidney, the team overcame this setback.
Although, it would still take many years to try these kidneys in humans, the research has shown the way towards the development of fully functional organs.
The kidneys were grown using human stem cells by Dr Takashi Yokoo and his team at the Jikei University School of Medicine in Tokyo. However, 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, reported the BBC. They used rats as the incubators for the growing the embryonic tissue.
They connected up the new kidney and its plumbing to the animal’s existing bladder and the system worked. Urine passed from the transplanted kidney into the transplanted bladder and then into the rat bladder. The system was still working properly when they checked again weeks later. The experiment was then repeated on a much larger mammal — a pig — and the same results were achieved.
Prof Chris Mason, an expert in stem cells and regenerative medicine at University College London, said: “We are still years off making such a system work in the human body. At least with kidneys, we can dialyse 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. They 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.
