Lab Grown Kidneys

Adult human sized pig kidneys have been developed in the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center which seem to have overcome a past drawback. In the new science experiment regenerative medical researchers managed to keep blood vessels in the new organs open and flowing with blood for nearly four hours.

Previously not only were the kidneys built in the lab rodent sized, the blood flow time period was only one hour. So this science project has done ground breaking work in their proof of concept study. The cell removal process leaves behind an intact network of blood vessels that can potentially supply the new organ with oxygen.

The new method of keeping the blood vessels open and  the blood flowing depends on the coating in the vessels that allow the blood cells to keep flowing.  In order to do this they used a combination of cell seeding and antibodies. The breakthrough, once mastered will be useful in creating other complicated organs in the lab as well.

Needless to say that the repercussions of this will be far reaching in the medical world. The concept of organ regeneration artificially has given a lot of potential hope so far, but actual results have not be quite as promising in real life science projects undertaken. Maybe this new technique will change things.